In March 2012, the primary school teacher Kelly Hardy from Melbourne, Australia, posted on the Reality Gives Facebook wall:

“My parents are booked to come on a tour with one of your guides. I am a teacher at a primary school in Melbourne, Australia, and the students would like to do something for a school in Mumbai or the NGO’s kindergarten. We were going to do a school fundraiser, and my parents were going to bring the money with them to Mumbai; however, I have read some other posts on your Facebook page that say that you only accept donations through PayPal. Could you let me know what other donations are needed for schools or kindergartens? The students were thinking of making some books for the children to look at and perhaps read…is that something that would be worthwhile?”

Her parents came and brought great books made by the kids in the 5th grade of the Cambridge Primary School in Melbourne. The books contain great self-made fiction and non-fiction stories on native animals to Australia, like the kangaroo, the emu and the wombat.

The students of the 1st and 2nd grades of the English Language Program at the municipal Kala Killa school in Dharavi were a little bit confused learning about these strange animals. “That’s a peacock”, was one child shouting when he saw the emu in one of the pictures. The teachers, who are all from Dharavi as well and who went through the one-year-long Muktangan training to learn the very modern child-centred teaching methods, explained to the young kids that these animals live in a very far country called Australia.

The students from Melbourne and their teacher, Kelly Hardy, now think about organising a fundraiser for Reality Gives in the next year. We appreciate their support a lot and just love the cute books as much as the Kala Killa students love them. Thank you so much!