'Hello! My name's Chinnamani, which means "little bell" in Tamil. I'm 12 years old and I Iive in a village called Karvadi in the south of India. I live with my mum and dad, four sisters and my little brother.

 

I think Karvadi is a beautiful place. There are trees and flowers between the houses in the compound. I decorate the outside of our house with traditional patterns. We also hang plants around the door to show that it is full of life.

We are not very well off, although mum and dad both work. My mum and two older sisters are in the village "sangam". There are lots of sangams in India. They're like a council people can join, and the members work together to help each other out. We've also got a small plot of land where we grow rice, groundnut and cotton.

 

I have to help out at home. I collect water twice a day from the pump and I help sweep the house and tidy around. In the evenings I help to cook dal, a meal made of lentils, over the fire. Washing up is my job too – what a pain!

When I was younger, I had to work all day, with my mum and sisters. We cleaned special stones called gemstones. Lots of children in India work to earn money for their family. But now I go to school. My favourite subjects are Tamil, English and science. I want to do well at school so that I can be a teacher when I grow up.'