Public School Experience

Today we visited a public primary school which I can say on behalf of the team was probably the most memorable and emotional experience we have had, and will be with us forever.

The students come from one of the poorer parts of Ribeirao Preto. However you wouldnt know from the smiles, laughter and playfulness of these guys.

We turned up to the entire school welcoming us with song. Firstly their National Athem and then the NZ National Athem, in Maori and in English. Then there city song and lastly, "Its a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. It brought tears to not only our eyes also our host families, very moving experience.

We also got to share our knowledge of NZ with a class who had lots of questions and were really keen to learn from us. Some of the most memorable were: " Do we all have blue/green eyes, how long did it take to get to Brazil and did we stop to eat?

This school provides lunch and dinner as kids can come for 5 hours in the morning or 5 hours in the afternoon for classes. There are animals in the school which provide education but also go towards feeding the kids like chickens, cows and of course the vege patch.

In addition Rotary has a project with this school where they have brought the machinery for them to have their own bakery.

Being able to provide these kids with a decent meal each day, along with the exceptionally motivated and passionate teachers has made huge changes in their lives and hopefully options for a good future.