This is our March 2010 newsletter to all our MSF School sponsors and supporters to thank you for your help. Please write back to us and tell us what you think.

We have received two pieces of good fortune in the shape of two wonderfully effective volunteers. David (gap-year law student) was visiting a friend in Hyderabad; heard about us, decided to stay on for a few weeks to help out. Margus is from Tartu in Estonia where the University I T Department has been our most generous sponsor and donor. He decided to spend his vacation visiting the school and helping with their (rather ancient) computers.

Lavanya tried hard to get David sitting properly on a chair, but he quite firmly said he would join the children eating their tiffin.

His cheerfulness and careful English has made him a huge success with teachers and students alike. Nursery rhymes, word games, using SKYPE to talk to people abroad, he seems able to turn his hand to anything.

He is off soon to continue his 'grand tour' and we shall all miss him.

The little girl on the left is Sadhya, one of many sponsored by Tartu University's Computer Department, where Margus teaches.

When we are favoured with an electricity supply to the school (the bustee is one of those areas where 'load-shedding' happens without warning) Margus has managed to install a wireless router and we now have 5 computers networked. The local government schools will be envious.

This is an interesting meeting between a small girl whose hair has been 'given to the god' by her parents, and a six-foot five Estonian with 'dreadlocks'. You don't see that every day!!

Simple keyboard and computer skills are very important in India. Learning the English (Roman) letters is a critical skill because almost all signs, official documents, advertisements, directions, invoices, etcetera, use it instead of (or sometimes as well as) the classical 'devanagari' or 'telugu' scripts.

So simple computer exercises and games are now part of the curriculum from age 8 upwards, and now that Margus has succeeded in networking all the school computers we will also be introducing email and the web to some of the younger children.

We have been running a 'mentoring' project for our teachers for over a year, with mixed success. We have now decided to extend this to 6 children in class 7. They are learning English but at this stage we are only hoping to raise their level of confidence with spoken English and NOT with written grammar.

Could you or one of your friends or relatives be a mentor for the school? You will need to install SKYPE (microphone and webcam required) and the sessions will be very brief, limited to just one or two simple questions and answers once a week, probably at about 9 or 10 AM UK time.

If you or a friend think you might be interested look at our page at http://msfoundationschool/mentors and write to Sandhya. Each of the children will have a Telugu-speaking teacher with them, but you should bear in mind that teachers also have very limited English, and gaining confidence is more important than anything else.