Catch ’em well and early: Teenager Kiyan Kapur brings emotional wellness to Pune classrooms

The Wellness Council, founded by Kiyan Kapur, started as a passion project and has now reached 500 students

At an age when most teenagers are still figuring out who they want to be, 17-year-old Kiyan Kapur is leading a movement to make emotional wellness as normal as school lessons. His Wellness Whispers Initiative and its flagship project, The Wellness Council, are built on a simple but progressive idea that well-being should begin early, and it should be fun.

Kapur started the initiative as a passion project in Symbiosis School, Pune, where he currently studies. What began as an experiment among younger students through playful exercises in empathy and self-awareness has since grown into a programme that's reached over 500 children. Now, it's expanding across 12 more schools.

"The world talks a lot about mental health, but it's mostly aimed at teenagers or adults," Kapur says. "I kept thinking, ‘what about younger kids?' They're still forming their sense of self. If we can help them understand emotions early, we can help them grow with clarity and kindness."

At the heart of The Wellness Council is what Kapur calls "plug-and-play wellness" - simple, joyful classroom activities that teach children to recognise, express, and manage emotions. Gratitude journalling sessions invite them to write about what made them smile that day. In "Pass the Compliment," students take turns saying something kind about each other instead of passing a parcel.

Other games involve blindfolded trust relays, emotion-based charades, and discussions on how to channel feelings rather than suppress them.

"I wanted to take wellness out of the lecture format," he says. "Kids shouldn't think of it as something serious or a punishment. When they laugh and play while learning about empathy or sadness, it stays with them."

Teachers have noticed that classrooms feel calmer. Parents, too, have reported subtle shifts in children pausing to check on friends, expressing gratitude at home, or becoming more mindful in conflict.

For Kapur, this philosophy grew naturally out of the environment he was raised in. His parents, Nikhil and Sharmilee Kapur, are the founders of the holistic wellness destination Atmantan Wellness Centre. Nikhil, a five-time Ironman triathlete, is a sports nutritionist who focuses on preventive health. Sharmilee is a pranic healer and spiritual wellness advocate, who has written Words That Bring You Home, exploring emotional healing.

Their combined influence shaped Kapur's early awareness of balance and compassion. "My parents live what they teach and naturally it's been inculcated into my lifestyle," he says. "But they never made it formal or heavy. It was just part of life. That's what I want The Wellness Whispers initiative to feel like - natural."
Even though Kapur is the head boy of his school, he admits he wasn't always this confident. "In first grade, I was too shy to even wish my teachers," he laughs.

"School really transformed me. Over the years, I started enjoying connecting with people, being part of the student council, and helping friends. I realised how much a positive school environment can shape you. I wanted to create that same feeling for others."

Kapur trains senior students in government schools to continue the programme after his team leaves. "The idea is that even if we're gone, the culture of wellness stays," he explains.

Asked whether he plans to continue the initiative after finishing school, Kapur pauses. "I'm still figuring that out," he admits. "Maybe I'll expand it to colleges, or start something bigger someday. For now, I just want these kids to enjoy learning and become secure within themselves."

In a world where "mental health" often arrives as a workshop, worksheet, or wellness week, The Wellness Whispers feels refreshingly organic with its grassroots approach, designed by a teenager who still remembers what it's like to sit on the other side of the classroom.

By stripping wellness of jargon and formality, Kapur is building a generation of children who see kindness, gratitude, and emotional literacy not as lessons, but as habits.