For Nomadic Bharwad Families, a Flexible School Ensures Migration Doesn’t End Children’s Education

The day for Pritam Nehare, a fellow with Learning Companions, begins at the Sonkhamb centre, with sunlight streaming across colourful mats and teaching aids neatly arranged for the morning session.

Pre-primary children wait patiently, some still gripping pencils awkwardly, others eager to show the letters they practised the previous day. After their class, he sends them out to play while he completes routine documentation.

Advertisment

Add The Better India As A Trusted Source

By 4 pm, the school-going children return, and the room fills again with chatter and lessons. The centre empties only as evening settles, when notebooks are slipped into bags and plans for tomorrow are made.

Learning Companions (LC), a non-profit based in Nagpur, works with children from the Bharwad nomadic community.

Even in 2026, many Bharwad hamlets migrate for months with their cattle to pasture lands and forests, usually leaving between December and January and returning with the first rain in June.

Conventional schools, built on rigid 10-month calendars, rarely adjust to this rhythm. As a result, many children drop out, repeat classes, or gradually conclude that education is not for them.

Across India, nomadic communities and denotified tribes remain among the most excluded from formal schooling.     

For Bharwad families in Vidarbha, education often looks like half-learnt alphabets, forgotten tables, and the discomfort of re-entering a classroom after months on the road.

This is where Learning Companions (LC) steps in, with an education model designed for children whose lives are often on the move.

Rethinking what early education really needs

Ganesh Birajdar, founder-director of the non-profit, argues that early learning does not require the standard timetable of a full school year.

“Our work questions the idea that a child must sit in school five hours a day for nine months to be ‘educated’. If a child can read and speak with confidence and think mathematically, she can learn almost anything on her own,” he tells The Better India.

This idea shaped Learning Companions’ curriculum philosophy in 2019: an intense focus on language and mathematics in the early years, rather than spreading children thin across many subjects.

At its heart, the curriculum rests on two simple pillars:

Mathematics: nurturing arithmetic along with problem-solving and logical thinking.

Language: enabling children to read, write, and understand well enough to learn independently.

Five centres, one flexible rhythm

Today, the organisation runs five education centres in Asola, Sonkhamb, Thanthan, Bothali, and Chakrighat, reaching nearly 200 children.

The centres function most intensively from June to December, when hamlets are settled nearby.

On regular days, pre-primary children attend the centres in the morning. Those in Class 1 and above first go to government schools and then return for additional learning.

All children participate in special extracurricular workshops and educational outings, also called ‘exposure trips’. These visits take them to book fairs, local police stations, museums, planetariums, zoos, workshops at an arts centre, and more.

Often, these are their first journeys beyond familiar routes, introducing them to a wider world.

Migration changes the logistics, not the commitment.

During migration months, fellows periodically visit Bharwad camps with worksheets so children do not lose touch with what has been taught.

“Earlier, most families migrated around Diwali in November. Now some leave later, around January or February, and migration has reduced in duration. Some parents even leave children behind with grandparents,” says Ganesh Birajdar.

When children travel with their families, fellows track where camps are set up — often on the outskirts of towns. Bharwad families choose such locations because they provide access to grazing land for cattle, water sources, and nearby weekly markets where milk can be sold.

The camps are spread across places such as Aaroli, Baravha, Chimur, Dahegaon Panj, Gardapar, Govindpur, Hardoli, Khandala, Kojabi, Kuhi, Lohara, Mandhal, Nagbhid, Nandel, Sarangad, Shiwapur, Sonapur, Takali, Wadala, Wadegaon, Yerani, and Yerkheda.

Fellows coordinate by phone, receiving locations mostly via WhatsApp, and plan their weekly visits to the hamlets. They spend an entire day at each site, reviewing previous lessons and leaving fresh worksheets and reading material.

A five-month migration can mean 15–20 such visits, while shorter seasons require fewer.

At times, week-long residential camps are organised near one hamlet, bringing children from different centres together for concentrated learning.

Impact in numbers

Impact in numbers

• Of the 153 children aged seven to 15 across five centres, nearly 70 per cent are now independent readers — up from under 10 per cent in 2019, when the programme began.
  

• Among 161 Bharwad children, 63 per cent (about 101 children) were independent readers.
  

• In neighbouring village schools, 53 per cent of 84 children (about 45 students) could read independently.
  

• This places Bharwad children 10 percentage points ahead, amounting to roughly 56 more independent readers in absolute terms.
  

Reading levels are measured through LC’s in-house literacy assessment tracking, maintained by teaching fellows. In July 2025, the organisation compared Bharwad children’s learning levels with those of nearby government school students, using the same reading fluency test for both groups.

How the organisation began

The journey began in 2016, when Ganesh Birajdar shifted from rural agricultural research to education work with children in Nagpur’s slums, an experience shaped by his engagement with the non-profit UPAY.

In 2019, he met Ramaji Jograna, an elder from the Bharwad community seeking support from rights-based groups to improve education for their children. That collaboration gradually grew into what is now Learning Companions.

While working with underprivileged children, Birajdar realised that quality education required teachers and leaders who were both trained and deeply committed. This led to the start of the two-year fellowship programme.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Learning Companions (@learningcompanions)

The fellowship is a two-year programme in which selected fellows teach, engage with communities, and develop skills in real education settings.

Applicants first submit an online form, followed by interviews and a two-day selection workshop.

Selected fellows receive a monthly stipend to cover basic living costs and travel — not a salary — while they learn on the job through hands-on fieldwork.

Fellows are chosen more for their willingness to work in villages and migration sites than solely for their degrees. Before leading centres, they receive training in pedagogy and community engagement.

Children who found their footing

Ajay Laxman Jograna, nine, has attended Learning Companions’ Sonkhamb centre since he was three. Speaking about his progress, he says, “I can read English now, and I know my tables.”

At Bothali, Vijay Jaisingh Mer, 13, once used to forget lessons during migration. Now he carries worksheets along and catches up quickly. He also proudly speaks of learning to ride a bicycle at the centre.

Ajay’s mother, Ratan Jogarana, has witnessed the impact of Learning Companions in her community first-hand.

“Our children never really studied before Learning Companions came into our lives. My son Mehul didn’t even attend school until the non-profit helped enrol him directly into Class 4 and supported him in catching up. Today, he is in Class 10 — and that is a big achievement for our family.”

She speaks with particular pride about her son Ajay. “He can read and write English very well,” she says.

Describing how the fellows stay connected even during migration, she adds, “Wo hamare peeche peeche ghoomte hai chhe mahine. Vo padhai chhootne nahi dete.” (They follow us around for six months. They don’t let the children’s studies slip.)

Ratan also recalls attending programmes organised by the non-profit at the Asola centre, where parents are informed about what their children are learning and the exposure trips they attend. “It gives us reassurance,” she says, “that our children are cared for.”

Nine-year-old Rohit Sidha Sathe from Asola describes what makes LC centres special: “No one scolds me here. If I don’t understand something, they repeat it. The teachers held our hands while teaching us how to write properly.”

Even when his family lives without electricity along migration routes, periodic visits by fellows keep him connected to his lessons.

The fellows who keep learning alive

Learning Companions is held together by 15 fellows who move between classrooms and remote settlements.

Pritam Nehare, 25, deferred a full scholarship at Azim Premji University for a Master’s in Early Childhood Education to continue teaching at the Sonkhamb centre.

During migration months, he occasionally travels to nomadic camps, teaching in open fields.

For Pritam, the hardest part of the work is not travelling to distant camps but convincing families to keep girls in school.

He recalls being deeply troubled when his student Gayatri* was pulled out just as she reached Class 8. After many conversations, he persuaded her parents to continue her education, arranged her transfer certificate, and secured her admission to an upper primary school. Yet Gayatri felt isolated in the new school, far from home and without peers from her community.  

Around the same time, Pritam knew Radha*, another Bharwad girl in Class 8 at a different school. He ensured both girls were admitted to the same school, giving them companionship and confidence. Today, both continue in Class 8, still a rarity in the community.

Pritam, born in Chincholi village in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district, shares a deep bond with his students.

When he was considering leaving the fellowship for further studies on a full scholarship, students called his mother, pleading with her not to send him away. That moment convinced him to stay.

Sustaining the work, expanding the circle

The two-year Learning Companions fellowship and five centres are supported by a mix of individual donors and companies such as Geomitra Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Forbes Marshall Foundation, Excel Controlinkage Pvt. Ltd, OrangeBeak Technologies Ltd, and PManifold Business Solutions.

As per Ganesh Birajdar, the model is intentionally lightweight, with clearly defined costs, limited infrastructure, and trained local fellows, making it financially scalable and possible to replicate in other nomadic communities.

Those who wish to support the non-profit can donate through the organisation’s crowdfunding campaign, connect the team to potential funders, apply for the fellowship (especially local youth), or volunteer their skills and time.

Learning that waits, learning that stays

Middle-schoolers now help parents read bus boards and calculate wages, and government teachers coordinate so children can return after migration without awkwardness, thanks to the sustained efforts of Learning Companions. Challenges remain, but families increasingly see the LC centres as allies.

As evenings settle over Thanthan, some children will soon travel with cattle while others stay back. The organisation will meet them with books, and classes will begin again. The work shows that education need not demand stillness; it can travel, wait, and return — belonging to children wherever they are.