more-in The Government Middle School in Soriankuppam is no longer the dilapidated building with worn out walls. A visit to the school would take you to a different world. A forest landscape with lush green trees, vibrant, colourful flowers and Tarzan swinging on a vine adorn the walls. Thanks to Paint Pondicherry, a group formed by young Puducherrians, this effort to create a surreal world at school will help the children enjoy their classes. Abirami Ravikumar, a core team member of Paint Pondicherry, said that there has been an increase in the number of students dropping out of government schools. “This is a place where impoverished children study. We realised that private schools are more attractive than government schools. One of the issues is infrastructure. We wanted to do something for the welfare of poor children and create an environment that would be conducive to such children to enjoy coming to the school,” she said. The idea behind this initiative is very simple — to make school-going an enjoyable practice and not merely an obligation. “This we do, by painting the walls of the classrooms in bright hues and with cartoons that the children relate to,” she said. Common goal Paint Pondicherry is an innovative initiative started by a group of students a few years ago. “Maheshwar, who is the president of Paint Pondicherry, was the one to initiate the idea. His parents work in a government school in Puducherry. Slowly, like-minded friends started to meet and discuss on how to begin our work. Though we had different ideas, we all had something in common. We wanted to work with the underprivileged children. We decided to focus on their education and, to begin with, started our painting project,” she said. So far, the group, comprising eight core members and four executive members, has painted seven schools, including government schools in Kottakuppam, Soriankuppam and other rural parts of Puducherry. In their latest project, a painting depicted the process of photosynthesis, which would make children understand it better.

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