This is the area of the community - the 'Janmabhoomi Colony' it is called - where we live.

It is outside and beyond Yellamabanda, a very poor area of Kukatpally. There is no proper road in this area because it stops where we are, as you can see on the map.

This is the community where the MS Foundation is situated. Not all people have proper housing and there is no space or land to grow food to help them to survive.

This is not a good place for a family with many children and it is difficult to keep them clean and healthy.

This is a community nursery. The mothers have gone to work as coolies - carrying baskets of bricks or sand or sacks of cement on a building site.

The girl should be in school but she must work for a few rupees to help her family.

This girl is also a child worker. She just came back from work and is having her lunch. After eating her lunch she has to go back to her work .

She is about 12 years so she cannot do heavy work - perhaps making dolls and toys for children in other countries to play with.

The mother went mad and her four small children won't get food from her. Even the Father won't look after these children.

They do not even have clean clothes to wear. So Lavanya is taking them to be educated and have good clothes.

This is a pond (reservoir) shore, where every woman come to this place to wash their clothes and many of these are less than 14 years old and should be in school.

And they even bathe and wash in that water. It is not hygienic.

We had a school concert and before the start Archana and Akhila sang an interesting song. The words are in Telugu and are something like:--

Please mother, let me go to school
I don't want to stay at home to mind the babies
I want to learn my alphabet and read books
I want to be an educated person
Please mother, let me go to school

In June 2009 we moved to a house which was just built. With some money from our sponsors, Holloways.org, we had a second floor put on it and a pucca roof that will keep out the monsoon rains.

The plants along the front are only a beginning. We have been given money by Callum Ruddock a student of Church Cowley Primary School in Oxford to plant some raised beds to grow onions and potatoes and cauliflower. These will be grown on the roof of our Prncipal's house next door.

Here is the WELCOME team. Each one sang a song and gave a little dance. From the left they are: Meghana, Uma Maheshwari, Sharada, Laxmi Bhavani, Sathavika, Sumalatha, Swathi.

They will need to learn about computer theory and they are learning in English, which means they are learning two subjects at the same time. This is quite a challenge for them.