January 21, 2026

Project Sampoorna: From Silent Classrooms to Confident Storytellers

The project that made 2025 feel a ‘whole’ lot meaningful for me by connecting my profession with a purpose- Project Sampoorna.

A dream that Zulekha Ebrahim, Mydhili Chirravuri and I saw years back- to empower students from the underserved communities with the skills they need to be future-fit and thrive in a dynamic work environment. Skills that are not prioritized in the traditional educational system like communication skills, storytelling, public speaking etc.

Most govt. schools are equipped with digital labs, STEM labs etc. but students in these schools often struggle to explain the concepts they have learnt. If you ask them a question or ask them to share an experience, they would be at loss for words or just shy away from expressing themselves. Only a handful of students would have the courage and confidence to raise their hands and make an attempt to speak, irrespective of the language barrier.

To address this issue, we partnered with Nirmaan Organization as a part of the Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) program to kickstart Project Sampoorna (a Sanskrit word that means whole, complete) so that these children have a fair chance to tell their story confidently and without any fear of judgment.

This project is not just about enabling them to speak fluently in English; it aims to ensure that, when they appear for job interviews, they are not disadvantaged compared to students educated in expensive private schools, where English is the first language. This project is not just about enabling them to tell their stories but telling it in their authentic voices so that their language barriers become secondary, and their sheer talent, grit and resilience shines through.

We are excited to share that our pilot school ZPHS Ramanthapur in Uppal has recently received corporate funding. As first steps, a dedicated Communication trainer has been hired, a library has been set up and multiple storytelling sessions through fun and interactive learning methods like puppet shows have been organized. Our goal is to scale this project to 10 schools and more by 2027 and beyond. If anyone from the LinkedIn fam wants to join hands, please feel free to DM any of us. It will take a village to scale this initiative and create significant impact, and any help will be much appreciated!

Thank you Zulekha Ebrahim and Mydhili Chirravuri for being my partners-in-crime, Sana Saleha, Anila Peddahulthi, Shivani Tyagi, Ravi Kishore, Aakash Guduru, Bhanusri Pothrepally and Rohini Jayanti for your time and efforts to take this project off the runway!

The last pic is my ‘strict judge’ avatar grading students on a storytelling competition we organized earlier this month! ?