Sarnath

Sarnath School Sarnath, close to the holy Shiva city of Varanasi (Benaras), is the place where, around 400BC, the enlightened Buddha came from Bodhgaya to give his first teachings. Today Sarnath is a gentle agrarian village with a main street, a central stupa in a deer park marking the place where Buddha first taught and a few temples which attract some passing pilgrims and tourists. Despite its proximity to Varanasi and tourism, Sarnath remains unprejudiced by modern trappings, there are still more cycle rickshaws than autos, more clay kulhuds than plastic cups.        The people living around the school are often economically poor, the children sometimes malnourished. Education here, as throughout India, is not compulsory; it is often not valued especially for girl children, and schools sometimes lack compassion and students learn by rote. The first Alice School that Valentino built in 1994, now teaches up to 550 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. 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 to encourage the extremely poor families living in the area to send their children to school. As the illiteracy rate in this area is one of India 's highest (nearly 100%) proximity of school premises could be seen as an incentive. Today, there are 35 regular pupils aged between 4 and 9 and three teachers. Most of them are girls which is by itself encouraging considering that in States like Uttar Pradhesh girls are generally denied access to education. Suneeta a five-year-old girl, says:” When it rains heavily I cannot come to school because I have a long way to walk to get here. But I feel very sad because I cannot play with my friends and because I like it very much here.” Suneeta walks 2.5 km twice a day to go to school and back home. 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 held here.