The Rainbow Children of Bali

The carrot has been dangled, the Green School is good to go, all plans are made, our enrollment fees are paid and here I sit idly skimming through websites. A flash on the screen tantalises me with a snip about the hippy children of Bali, known as the rainbow children.

Rainbow children, Hippy Children, well this certainly appeals, my interest definitely  piqued, I must find out more.

Scrolling through I find very little mention of this selection of children, but I am now on a mission to discover who these children are and why my attention was so drawn to them. I can't explain the feeling other than once again a definite need to find our more.

Finally I come across this article - accredited to http://www.baliadvertiser.biz/articles/greenspeak/2009/rainbow.html
Essentially it says:

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Ubud's Rainbow Children

How many foreigners have visited Ubud through the decades, fallen under its spell and settled down? How many have married and made beautiful babies beside those verdant rice terraces? Then the babies grow up, the carefree days are over and suddenly decisions have to be made about schooling. Twenty years ago the only option was Bali International School in Sanur. Today there are many other choices, but they are all a long drive south.

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The article continues on sharing about a new generation of kids in Ubud, based on their parents wanting a well-rounded, child-centred school offering a world-class education without the hefty fees. Unable to find such a school, led by the parents and their desires - they created one.

It is known as Pelangi (Rainbow) School - possibly named thus due to the rainbow T Shirts the children wore as a uniform. It ticks all the boxes of schools that would interest us, especially being a true community school.

I love that it is a mix of western and Indonesian kids are learning together in a bilingual environment. However, more than the actual information, the thing that jumped out at me as I researched more was the settled energies within the children and the happy joy in their eyes. Also fitting with our ethos was that the children had a great say in how the school operated.

In researching further I discovered that Pelangi offers a daily drop-in option for visiting children and I loved that it offered scholarship students from local families.

I immediately emailed the school - after fervently searching out their contact details (this took around 5 hours of constant internet surfing) and within a day received one of the warmest welcomes and responses back from the school, I have received. It continued saying they would be delighted to have Emma with them in 2015 and asking about her interests.

I was immediately welcomed as part of the family in such a manner that I was certainly interested enough to pursue this further.

Hmmm, Green School / Pelangi - Bali you certainly do offer some interesting dilemmas!