A little girl stands silently at the back of the classroom, clutching her English textbook. When asked a simple question in English, she doesn’t answer. Instead, she leans towards the classmate beside her, whispers something, and waits. The message travels to another student—the unofficial “English expert” of the class—who finally translates it for the visitor standing at the front.
For 17-year-old Roshni Gupta, founder of Project Vidya and a Class 12 student at a private school in Bengaluru, this silent verbal relay is a familiar practice in government schools and orphanages where she teaches. Gupta’s journey started when she was just 14. As a volunteer at 1M1B (One Million for One Billion), a UN-accredited non-profit organisation, she began to visit underserved schools .as a way ofgiving back to society. During one such visit, she noticed English textbooks were filled with neatly copied notes. Curious, she asked students to explain what they had written. They couldn’t.
“The teacher had written the notes and the students had simply copied the same,” says Gupta, founder of Project Vidya. She discovered a deeper gap existing in the education system—English was being taught as a subject to be memorised, not a language to be used.
That realisation was behind the founding of Project Vidya, an initiative that focuses not just on teaching English but on helping underprivileged children find the confidence to speak it. What began as a small effort has now reached over 10,000 children, equipping them with spoken English skills that Gupta hopes will improve their future employability.
The awkward silence that greets her at the beginning of every workshop is part of the process. “The children don’t speak to me directly but go through an unofficial translation channel—they whisper their message into the ears of the classmate best at English, who then tells me what they said,” Gupta says. Instead of stepping into the classroom as a teacher, she introduces herself as another student. “I conduct the classes in a way I would like my classes to be conducted if I were a student,” she says.
Her hour-long workshops rarely resemble conventional English lessons. Children watch lively presentations and YouTube videos before moving on to games that weave language with creativity. In one instance, they fold colourful origami figures, decorate them and introduce the creations as characters in English. In another instance, groups write short scripts set in an office, a school or a playground before acting them out. Story-building circles often end in peals of laughter as every child adds an unexpected sentence to the tale. “These activities make the children creatively express themselves and have fun without the pressure to learn by rote,” Gupta shares.
Her lessons are designed with an equal measure of empathy. Having interacted closely with children from difficult backgrounds, Gupta consciously avoids examples that could reopen emotional wounds.
“Since the children come from abusive backgrounds, I prefer not to take any example of family as they might trigger discomfort,” she explains.
Gupta sees grammar as only part of the challenge. Confidence, she believes, is the bigger barrier to learning.
“Students might be able to read and write English, but they are not able to express themselves in it. Their lack of confidence comes from the fear of messing up,” she says. “We love to laugh at a mispronounced English word. This creates a fear of ridicule. To put them at ease, I tell the kids about how I overcame my fear of judgement and reassure them that no one is going to laugh at tyhem.” The transformation she looks for doesn’t appear on report cards. It arrives quietly—the day a child no longer needs a classmate to translate, holds a conversation a little longer, understands a sentence spoken at normal speed or raises a hand to ask a question. The shrinking of hesitation, more than perfect grammar, tells her the workshops are making a difference.Working with children has also reshaped Gupta’s own worldview. “We share the same love for learning, we get excited about an activity, we are willing to try new things, but what separates us are background and exposure. Bringing my laptop to class is normal for me, but it is an alien sight to them,” she says. An avid debater, Gupta has for long loved the English language. She hopes to study political science and economics after school while continuing to work in education.
Today, Project Vidya has expanded beyond India, with chapters in Rwanda and New Zealand and partnerships in Kenya. Yet Gupta believes its biggest lesson is personal. “The project has made me realise that despite being a school student, I have the power to make a difference,” she reflects. She is not just teaching the grammar of a child’s future but is also changing the syntax.