A message from Sachin Sharma, Founder — Udgam Welfare Foundation
When I started Udgam Welfare Foundation in 2012, I did not set out to build an organisation. I set out to answer a question that would not leave me alone: why should a child’s future be decided by the income of the family they were born into? In a city like Delhi, I kept meeting bright, curious children who were falling behind for reasons that had nothing to do with their ability — no money for coaching, no computer at home, no one to sit with them when a lesson did not make sense.
That gap is what we exist to close.
What we believe
Education is not a privilege to be earned. It is a right. Every child who walks through our doors — or logs in from a borrowed phone — is treated as capable, because they are. Our job is not to lower the bar for children from disadvantaged homes. It is to remove the obstacles that were placed in front of them before they ever had a say.
Two things have stayed non-negotiable since day one. First, it is free. Not “affordable”, not “subsidised” — free. The moment a price tag appears, the very children we are trying to reach walk away. Second, no child is left out for reasons of hearing or language. Some of the most attentive, hardworking students I have taught are deaf, and they learn beautifully when we simply present the material in a way they can see.
The children we serve
We work with two groups who are too often overlooked: children from economically disadvantaged families, and children who are deaf or hard of hearing. For the first, cost and language are the walls. For the second, it is a world of learning material that assumes you can hear the teacher. We build for both — in English and in Hindi, with visuals, captions and patient, step-by-step explanations — so that the lesson meets the child, not the other way round.
A free classroom that never closes
A physical classroom can hold thirty children. A good lesson online can reach thirty thousand. That simple truth is why we built Vidaara — a free learning platform that puts a full school’s worth of teaching into the hands of any child with a basic phone and a little bit of signal. There is no fee, no trial that expires, and no paywall waiting a few lessons in. A child in a one-room home has access to the same material as a child in an expensive coaching centre.
Here is what that child finds when they log in:
- Complete courses for Grades 1 to 12 — Mathematics, Science, English and more, taught in both English and Hindi, so language is never the reason a concept doesn’t land.
- A tutor that answers whenever they’re stuck — our bilingual (English–Hindi) AI tutor explains problems step by step, at any hour, for the child who has no one at home to ask.
- Practice that shows them where they stand — thousands of questions, chapter-wise tests and full mock exams with instant scoring and honest feedback on what to work on next.
- Lessons you can watch and revisit — video explanations, worked examples and interactive activities, with captions so hearing-impaired students are included from the start.
- A window for parents and teachers — simple dashboards that track progress, so a parent who never had the chance to study can still see how their child is doing.
- Preparation for the exams that change lives — from school boards to competitive entrance tests, the kind of preparation that families usually pay heavily for, available to every child at no cost.
We built it to run on the devices people actually own — modest phones, shared computers, uneven internet — because a platform that only works on the newest laptop is a platform that quietly excludes the children we care about most.
I am honest about the limits of this. Technology does not teach a child on its own — a caring adult does. What technology gives us is reach: the ability to put a good lesson in front of a thousand children for the same effort it once took to reach thirty. Used with that humility, it is one of the most powerful tools we have for fairness.
An invitation
If you are a parent wondering whether this is really free — it is, and your child is welcome. Visit vidaara.org and let them begin today. If you are a teacher, a developer, or someone who simply remembers the person who once believed in you, there is a place for you here. And if you have the means to support this work, know that every rupee goes toward keeping a classroom door — and a login screen — open to a child who was told those doors were not meant for them.
We are a small organisation with a stubborn belief: that talent is spread evenly across every neighbourhood, and only opportunity is not. Closing that gap, one child at a time, is the work of my life.
Thank you for reading, and for being part of it.
Sachin Sharma
Founder, Udgam Welfare Foundation and vidaara.org
Registered Non-Profit since 2012 · Delhi, India