How Artist-Turned-Educator Rouble Nagi Built 800+ Classrooms and Won the $1M Global Teacher Prize

A teacher’s true impact isn’t measured in report cards — it’s measured in the lives they transform. The best teachers don’t just teach lessons; they ignite belief. They step in when systems fall short, and they go beyond classrooms to ensure that learning reaches those who need it most. Sometimes, all it takes is one person willing to see possibility where others see neglect.

Advertisment

Add The Better India As A Trusted Source

And sometimes, they don’t wait for classrooms, blackboards or even permission. They simply begin.

That’s exactly what Rouble Nagi did.

When walls became classrooms

Born in Jammu and Kashmir and celebrated first as an artist, Rouble could have confined her creativity to canvases and exhibitions. Instead, while working in Dharavi and other underprivileged communities in Maharashtra, she witnessed a reality that was impossible to ignore — children growing up between garbage heaps, broken walls and narrow alleys, with no schools to attend and no books to open.

Where many saw urban decay, she saw unrealised potential.

And she asked a powerful question: What if the walls could teach?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Better India (@thebetterindia)

With nothing but paint and purpose, she began transforming grey, lifeless walls into vibrant learning spaces. Alphabets bloomed in bold colours. Multiplication tables stretched across bricks. Science diagrams, history timelines and life skills lessons appeared where graffiti once stood. Education, quite literally, came home.

Children who had never stepped into a classroom began learning right outside their doors. Streets turned into schools, and curiosity replaced the hesitation they once carried. The community itself became a living, breathing textbook.

From art project to nationwide movement

What began as a simple act of painting soon grew into a national mission. Today, her initiative has helped create over 800 learning centres across India, bringing education closer to children who would otherwise be left behind.

But for Rouble, learning could not exist in isolation from dignity.

She realised that a child cannot dream freely if their roof leaks or their walls crumble. And so, her work expanded beyond education. Through her foundation’s efforts, more than 1.5 lakh homes across slums and villages have been repaired and restored — because a safe home is the foundation of self-worth.

Recognition with humility

Her extraordinary work drew global attention. At the World Government Summit in Dubai, she was awarded the prestigious $1 Million Global Teacher Prize by the Varkey Foundation.

Yet, standing on that international stage, her response was deeply rooted in humility:
“This is not my honour, this is the honour of my country, India.”

Today, Rouble plans to open schools for underprivileged children in Jammu and Kashmir and establish vocational training centres to equip India’s next generation with practical, employable skills.

She did not wait for perfect infrastructure. She did not wait for policy changes; she picked up a brush and began. And in doing so, she reminded us that a true teacher doesn’t wait for walls to be built — they turn walls into hope.