Taking the Road Less Travelled: The Story of Pehchaan The Street School

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

–Robert Frost

The closing lines of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken captures an immense message about individual choice, and the transformative power of forging one’s own path. This metaphor rings especially true when one ponders upon the life-changing work of Pehchaan The Street School, an organisation that empowers underprivileged children to break free from the shackles of marginalisation and walk the road toward education, and opportunity, roads often not taken by those born into hardship.

A Guiding Torch Amidst Shadows

Founded with the vision to bring free education to children living in disadvantaged communities, Pehchaan The Street School recognises the devastating educational gap that exists in urban India. In a society where economic disparity often determines the arc of one’s life, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are too frequently denied even their basic rights.

The choice to learn, to dream, and to achieve so easily accessible to some, is a luxury for many. Pehchaan The Street School strives to level the playing field. Much like the traveller in Frost’s poem who chooses the less trodden path, the children of Pehchaan The Street School are offered the chance to venture down a road many around them never dare to take: the path of education.

The open classrooms of Pehchaan The Street School serve hundreds of children across multiple cities. Their teaching practicals follow flexibility, empathy, and cultural sensitivity, the variety of qualities often absent in big institutional settings. From basic literacy and numeracy to science, moral education, and life skills, Pehchaan The Street School provides children with the resources to imagine a future beyond marginalisation.

Poetry and Practice

Robert Frost’s poem emphasises the weight of decisions made in solitude, where no guide exists to predict the outcome. The poet chooses the path “less worn,” one that appears unconventional, and it alters the course of his life. Similarly, the students of Pehchaan The Street School, supported by the efforts of the organisation, take a brave detour from the societal script written for them, a script of child labour, illiteracy, and generational poverty.

What is compelling is that the children are not simply handed an alternate path; they must walk it with grit. Pehchaan The street School helps lay the stones, light the way, and hold their hands along the way, but the step forward is theirs to take. Their success reflects the spirit of Frost’s traveller: the courageous ones to choose differently.

Events and Initiatives: Lighting the Way

This dedication shows in Pehchaan The Street School’s programs. Beyond regular classes, the team runs creative drives to brighten students’ lives. For example, each winter the organization partners with school clubs to ensure no child misses school for want of warmth. In one drive, students at Apeejay School donated scarves, sweaters and notebooks so their younger counterparts at Pehchaan The Street School could go to class warm and ready. For the children, these bundles of warm clothes and stationery were a symbol of love and support from their community. Similarly, during Diwali the Pehchaan The Street School community packs special kits: a new school bag, books, and sweets, each item a token of hope. One teacher noted that for the children a new pencil is not ordinary – “With new pencils, they will write their own destinies, one stroke at a time”. Those words could be lifted from Frost himself: on an empty street, each child is handed pencils instead of fates.

Pehchaan The Street School also makes education itself an adventure. In 2025, volunteers produced a playful “MasterChef: Volunteer Edition” event on an open roof, where they cooked up lessons instead of recipes. In classrooms, teachers now routinely include health and safety workshops. For instance, after spotting a child showing signs of abuse, Pehchaan The Street School introduced a regular “good touch/bad touch” lesson into the curriculum to protect other children. Likewise, story-based learning and games (like clapping to the tune “If you’re happy and you know it”) turn every session into something children want to return to. The goal is clear: to bring schooling right to where they are, so that each child gets a fair chance at choosing knowledge and compassion.

Growth Rooted in Compassion

From its modest beginnings, Pehchaan The Street School has grown into a network of volunteers, donors, educators, and social workers who believe in the power of education to change lives. It now operates centres in cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, and Varanasi.

Its growth, however, is measured with its impact. According to internal impact assessments, over 80% of children enrolled in Pehchaan The Street School’s programmes transition to formal schools within a year. Dozens have gone on to complete higher secondary education, and a few are now in university something once thought impossible.

What sets Pehchaan The Street School apart is its commitment to accessibility with dignity. There are no uniforms, no fees, no barriers—only a teacher, a chalkboard, and a promise that every child deserves to learn.

Volunteers on the Journey

The journey of Pehchaan The Street School shapes the lives of the children, and the volunteers who walk alongside them. Described by the organization as the “beat that pumps life” into its mission, volunteers come from all walks of life whether its students, professionals, and retirees united by the belief that every child deserves a fair chance. Through teaching, organising events, and spending weekends planning impactful sessions, they help transform street corners into vibrant classrooms.

Pehchaan The Street School emphasizes that the role of volunteers goes beyond instruction. They become mentors, motivators, and part of the children’s memories. The organisation often speaks of itself in human terms, portraying the school not as a physical structure but as a living presence built from shared moments. Volunteers are central to this identity, helping to sustain a space where learning thrives without walls, and where each contribution no matter how small becomes part of something big.

Taking the Road Less Traveled

Deciding to help underprivileged children learn was itself a leap of faith. As Frost predicted, “way leads on to way” – and Pehchaan The Street School’s path has led further than anyone knew at the start. The simple choice the founders made, to teach where there was no school continues to grow outward. Each child who picks up a pencil under a small lamp rewrites their own story. Each volunteer who shows up becomes part of that story. As Pehchaan The Street School has put it, “We are not only giving education to a single child and the power to meet their own needs, but… an impact on the generations to come.” In this way, Pehchaan The Street School embodies Frost’s closing image. One child at a time, it took the road less taken by others bringing learning to shadows and “that has made all the difference” in their lives.

Looking ahead, the road continues, lined with the footprints of hope. Ten years in, Pehchaan The Street School still knows the path it has chosen. It remains a place “more than an educational initiative but a ‘lighthouse of hope’” for children who would otherwise vanish into the edges of the city. Every classroom has a banner of possibility, every notebook scribbled with new dreams. As volunteers and teachers remind us, teaching here isn’t charity but it’s a shared journey back to childhood and forward to adulthood.

Robert Frost imagined the traveler telling this tale “with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence”. In reality, the storytellers are here now. Pehchaan The Street School’s pioneers and pupils stand side by side, proof that when choice and compassion meet, the road less traveled can lead to a future rich with promise. After ten years of steady steps, the organisation only grows in faith that education is the road worth walking for it truly “has made all the difference.”

Making All the Difference

The Road Not Taken ends on a note of quiet triumph. The speaker’s decision to choose a less common path is not glorified but acknowledged as deeply meaningful. In the same way, Pehchaan The Street School’s mission is not about its significance.

It is about one more child learning to read. One more girl daring to dream. One more family believing in education.

Pehchaan The Street School represents the quiet revolution of education, a revolution fought not with protests or politics but with pencils, patience, and purpose.

In the words of Frost, it has made all the difference.

Can’t wait to know more about the work? Explore more of Pehchaan The Street School here-

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