About BRIDGE
BRIDGE makes education reachable for people who cannot reach it because of money, language or circumstance.
A child moves to another country and lands in a school where they do not understand the language. They fall behind not in one subject but in all of them at once.
Their parents cannot help — they do not speak the language well yet either. There is no money for a tutor. The school, however willing, cannot teach the child separately. A year passes, and the child is behind not through ability but through language. After that, catching up only gets harder. There are a great many children like this, and almost nobody is working on it.
Free classes in small groups
We run free online classes in Russian and English. Trained volunteers aged 16 to 19 teach them, from a curriculum we write ourselves. Schools and organisations refer the students to us — they know the families and hold parental consent.
- 8–12
- in a group
- 2
- running each lesson
- 10
- week course
- £0
- cost to the family
A decision, not a compromise
It means there are no adult strangers around the children — the largest risk in online teaching simply disappears. Teenagers often explain things to their peers better than adults do: they still remember what not understanding feels like. And volunteers are plentiful, because almost every older student needs real experience.
BRIDGE was founded by a school student
BRIDGE's founder is 16 and still at school in Russia. We put that near the top of the page rather than hiding it at the bottom. An adult who finds out later feels misled — and is right to.
- Nothing here is entrusted to one person anyway. The safeguarding rules are enforced by software, not by anyone's attentiveness.
- A separate adult is responsible for safeguarding — see further down this page.
- The partner school knows the families and holds parental consent.
- You can check us against data rather than words: we publish attendance and test results.
The questions we get asked
They will be asked anyway. Better to answer them straight away, and honestly, than to wait.
You're 16. Why should anyone trust you with children?
They shouldn't — not me alone. And I haven't asked them to. There is a named adult with contact details responsible for safeguarding. The partner school knows the families and holds parental consent. The rules are enforced by the system rather than by my attentiveness. What I am responsible for is running this well — and you can check that against the attendance data.
Isn't this really for your university application?
Partly, yes. I want to study in America and this helps. I am not going to pretend otherwise, and most of our volunteers are here for the same reason. Using that honestly is better than pretending everyone is a saint. But out of everything I could have chosen, I chose this. The real answer is what I do in year two, once the application has already been sent. I cannot prove that to you today. I can only keep going.
Why should a school project be taken seriously?
The project, not necessarily. Take the students seriously. How many turn up, how many lessons they attend, and how far their results move — or fail to move, in which case everyone will see that too. No course has finished yet, which is why there are no numbers. They will appear on their own, and we will not touch them up.
Prove it first, then grow
Right now we work with children from families who have moved to Russia. Next: refugees, and girls in countries where access to education is restricted. But we will only get there alongside organisations that already work with those communities and know how to do it safely. First the model has to be proven here.
The adult responsible for safeguarding
A specific adult, with a name and contact details, is responsible for safeguarding at BRIDGE. Anything sent through the "Report a problem" button reaches them, not the teacher.
This person's name and contact details will be published here before the first group starts. No group will start before that: it is a condition, not an intention.
How safety is builtWrite to us
Schools, organisations, journalists, future volunteers — write. A 15-minute conversation commits you to nothing. If we are not a fit, we will say so.
- Telegram
- @bridge_education