You just need to index the string, just like you do with a list.

>>> 'hello'[3]
l

Note that Python indices (like most other languages) are zero based, so the first element is index 0, the second is index 1, etc.

For example:

>>> 'hello'[0]
h
>>> 'hello'[1]
e

There's a builtin method find on string objects.

s = "Happy Birthday"
s2 = "py"

print(s.find(s2))

Python is a "batteries included language" there's code written to do most of what you want already (whatever you want).. unless this is homework :)

find returns -1 if the string cannot be found.

There are two string methods for this, find() and index(). The difference between the two is what happens when the search string isn't found. find() returns -1 and index() raises a ValueError.

Using find()

>>> myString = 'Position of a character'
>>> myString.find('s')
2
>>> myString.find('x')
-1

Using index()

>>> myString = 'Position of a character'
>>> myString.index('s')
2
>>> myString.index('x')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: substring not found

From the Python manual

string.find(s, sub[, start[, end]])
Return the lowest index in s where the substring sub is found such that sub is wholly contained in s[start:end]. Return -1 on failure. Defaults for start and end and interpretation of negative values is the same as for slices.

And:

string.index(s, sub[, start[, end]])
Like find() but raise ValueError when the substring is not found.