Rishi Valley is one of India’s top residential boarding schools. The campus sits on some 375 acres of land in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, nestled between hills, farms and small villages. Throughout the day, you see cows grazing, shepherds guarding and herding their sheep, monkeys traveling in groups, and butterfly’s fluttering around. It is by all means, for those within the gates, a pastoral paradise.
Rishi Valley students come from throughout India to learn and experience from the very best- highly trained educators, activities from yoga to folk dancing, cycling on Sunday afternoons, and a dining hall that uses locally grown vegetables to prepare the food it serves. Rishi Valley School is by all means, a beautiful place where beautiful learning occurs. Although I live on this expansive campus, I do not work directly with the Rishi Valley School. My placement, the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RIVER) is part of the Rural Education Centre (REC) (which is under the umbrella of the Rishi Valley School) which works to provide education and educational resources to 460 rural village children through 10 primary satellite schools in surrounding villages.
Before I delve into the work I am doing here throughout the next several months, I dedicate this blog to the natural beauty of Rishi Valley (and some morning songs from our REC students, in the video below):
