Mahila Mandali Seva Samaja High School

Our school sits right at No.80 in Shankarapuram. It's an old neighborhood, and Mahila Mandali Seva Samaja High School has been part of it for a long time. You can see the old trees lining KR Road from our windows. The building itself has that classic Bangalore feel, with high ceilings and heavy wooden doors that have been painted over a dozen times. In the mornings, the sound of the school bell is the loudest thing on the block. We have girls coming in from all over the local area, some walking and some being dropped off by their parents. It gets pretty loud during the lunch hour when everyone is out in the yard. We don't have fancy smart boards in every room, just the usual blackboards and chalk. The teachers have been here for years, and they know most of the families in the area. It’s a bit of a tight-knit community. We spend a lot of time on the basic stuff, making sure the kids can read and write properly. The office is always full of old ledgers and stacks of paper. It’s not a corporate environment at all; it’s more like a big, busy house. Sometimes the plumbing gives us trouble, or we have to paint a wall that’s peeling, but that’s life in an old building. We just keep things running as best as we can every single day. The children seem happy, and that is what matters most to us at the end of the long day.