The Better India · 245 days ago

Learning Companions: Education Model for Bharwad Nomadic Children in Maharashtra

For generations, the Bharwad people of Vidarbha have followed their cattle across seasonal pastures, and for just as long, their children have watched formal education slip away with each migration. Learning Companions, a Nagpur-based non-profit, built its model around a quieter conviction - that a child does not need a fixed classroom to become a true learner. "Our work questions the idea that a child must sit in school five hours a day for nine months to be 'educated,'" says founder Ganesh Birajdar. Fellows track families by WhatsApp across remote camps, teach in open fields, and, as one mother described it, "follow us around for six months" so the children's studies never slip. The result is measurable - nearly 70 percent of children in the program are now independent readers, up from under 10 percent in 2019 - but the deeper achievement is what it reveals: that belonging to education does not require staying still.