Project Setu: How Saanvi Raghavendran Is Bringing Digital And Artistic Skills To Rural Classrooms India Forgot

Most days at sixteen are spent inside a classroom. Saanvi Raghavendran spends hers building one. The student from United World Academy, Bangalore, doesn't run her initiative from an NGO office or an after-school club room. She runs it from a Saturday morning, a computer screen, and a quiet handful of youth mentors connecting to government schools deep in rural Karnataka. The question that started it all wasn't "What do these children need?" It was sharper and harder to answer: "What are they never given the chance to do?"

What She Found in the Classrooms

The name Setu, Sanskrit for "bridge", came after the schools did. In late 2025, Saanvi began making visits to rural government schools outside Bengaluru. The children there weren't behind in any obvious way. They could read their textbooks, recite their lessons, and answer their teachers. What was missing wasn't ability. It was an opportunity, the kind a private-school student rarely thinks about: a first computer session, a craft taught patiently, and a dance learnt for an audience that actually shows up. Saanvi decided she would build all three, along with the people who could deliver them and the stage that would celebrate the result.

The Selection That Took It Global

In April 2026, Saanvi was named a 2026 awardee of the IB Global Youth Action Fund (GYAF). The fund, run by the International Baccalaureate under its Festival of Hope initiative, is among the largest youth grant programmes in the world. This year alone, 324 young people behind 110 projects from over 40 countries were chosen out of more than 1,100 applications.

The pilot that earned the recognition was smart but intentional. Between December 2025 and January 2026, Setu ran across two rural government schools and reached 300 students through three core programmes: crochet, dance, and computer literacy. The result both schools have since recorded is the kind of number that needs no translation: a 200% increase in student attendance.

The pilot ended with Setu Utsav, the programme's first showcase, hosted on Republic Day 2026. Students walked their families and mentors through their crochet pieces, performed their dance routines, and demonstrated what they had learned on a computer for the first time in their lives. A semester of quiet Saturday work became, for one afternoon, something that filled a room.

Three Disciplines, Three Reasons

Setu's curriculum is structured around three pillars: Teach, Showcase, and Sustain.

Each of the three disciplines was picked for what it asks of a child rather than what it produces. Crochet trains the hands and the patience of a student who have rarely been told to slow down. Dance turns posture into self-belief and gives a quiet child a way to be loud. Computer literacy opens the door that the rural digital divide has kept closed, covering basic operations, internet safety, and the simple confidence of knowing what a screen can do for you. Each programme is run by a small group of trained youth mentors between sixteen and twenty-five, with local teachers helping the children stay focused on-site.

Setu Utsav, the programme's signature event, is built into the calendar for a reason. It pulls parents, educators, and neighbours into the same room as student work and turns months of practice into a moment of recognition. A child whose handmade craft is admired in public has crossed something invisible. She is no longer the person being taught. She is the person producing.

What Comes Next

The pilot is the floor, not the ceiling. Phase 1, in the first half of 2026, is scaling Setu to 10 schools and 5,000 students. Phase 2, by the end of 2026, will take it to 25 schools and 10,000 students. By the middle of 2027, the programme is targeting 25,000 students across India's rural government school network.

That kind of expansion needs institutional ground beneath it, and Saanvi has it. Setu's principal sponsor and partner is the NHS 82-85 Excel Charitable Trust, which provides the fiscal infrastructure and community access that lets the programme focus on classroom delivery instead of administrative survival.

A Bridge Built To Outlast Its Builder

"I started Project Setu because I saw how children in government schools in Karnataka were being left out of the kind of learning that shapes who you become – the digital skills, the creative confidence, the chance to be seen," Saanvi says. "This grant means we can expand to many more schools, bring in more youth mentors from across the country, and give thousands more children the chance to discover what they're capable of."

What sets Setu apart is something most youth-led projects miss. It has been designed from the start as a system rather than a story. The handbooks, the mentor pipeline, the Setu Utsav template, and the volunteer onboarding process – all of it has been written down, standardised, and made repeatable. The point of building a bridge, after all, is that it stays standing once you walk away.

The structure is in place. The classrooms are open. The work continues.

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