Alice School Sarnath

The first Alice School that Valentino built in 1994, now teaches up to 450 children aged between 5 and 16. 25 students are residential.

There are 22 full time teachers, one part time massage teacher, together with some volunteers.

The school building covers an area of 26,112 square feet and encompasses 22 classrooms, a central courtyard, play ground, garden, agricultural area for growing vegetables and a kitchen boasting a genuine Italian pizza oven.

School starts - depending on the season - at 6.30 in the morning and finishes at 2pm every day except Sunday (and some Indian holidays). Some children return for afternoon classes.

As well as conventional Indian syllabus subjects, the following eclectic range of subjects is taught throughout the year:

• philosophy and 'special program' subjects are taught to all students by Valentino, Luigina and Awanish;
• a yoga training program and vipassana was incorporated into the curriculum in 2000 and every class does yoga at least once a day. During weekends yoga and meditation retreats for the older students are held at the school;
• vipassana is taught by regular teachers as well as visiting volunteers;
• folk songs are sung every lunch time, in various languages, Hindi, English, Italian, Taiwanese.
  
  And Valentino hugs anyone he meets.

There are afternoon classes for about 30 women and girls from the surrounding area, offering basic literacy and practical instruction in hygiene, health and sewing. Evening classes (6.30-9.00pm) are organized specifically for working students and child labourers offering basic literacy, music and drama.

A second school was opened in Sarnath in 2001 mainly for street children of the area. There are 24 regular pupils aged between 5 and 9 and one teacher. The building is 2 kilometers from the first school, and consists of a classroom, a central courtyard of flowers, an office, and a visitors room. Evening classes for working women and children are sometimes also run from here.

We have three teachers, Bimal Chakma, Mera and Anita.

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya is in the Indian state of Bihar, one of the poorest and most economically underdeveloped states in India. The problems of poverty, landlessness, conflict over land tenure, inadequate health care, high infant mortality, inter-caste violence, crime and illiteracy hinder development at all levels.

Bodhgaya is also a primary Buddhist centre, being the place where Siddharta Gautama sat under the famous Bodhi tree and achieved enlightenment, and as such the town attracts considerable Buddhist pilgrims and visitors mostly for the short winter season of two months.

Alice Project Bodhgaya

Built in February 1999, Alice Project Bodhgaya opened in 2001 nine kilometers from Bodhgaya in Barbatta area. The school teaches up to 120 children aged between 6 and 12, with 6 full time teachers. There are 4 residential boys.

Most of the children come from poor village families with lives often brutalised by the prevailing social conditions. Two students of the school run a shop in Bodhgaya to raise a small amount of money for the school and give their family an income. For working women there are vocational training programs run in the afternoon or evening.

The school building is still being built, a stupa is completed. More land is being purchased to create an agricultural project.

Awanish
our principal

Papu
Vice president

Vinod Pal
our History teacher

Santosh
(New secretary of Alice Project)