Travellers’ University: Education Through Travel Programs

12-Aug-2019

Planned properly, travelling can be about so much more than just crossing places off your bucket list. There is a lot to learn while visiting new places. Keeping this in mind, four creative travelling enthusiasts established a learning community to support individuals who are interested to travel and learn and are looking for options in education. Founded in 2018, this community was called Travellers’ University, providing self-education through travelling.

The four people behind this great initiative are Rahul Karanpuriya, who took a life-changing one month journey without money on a bicycle across Rajasthan, following a two-week stint to different parts across India. “It was a gap year project to promote the idea that people could take a year off from academics and travel to find out their inner mojo,” Rahul said.

Ashwini Shah, who quit his professional life, to travel and explore the way people live. A trek—Shrikhand Mahadev Yatra—in Kullu was a turning point in his life. Befriending a 50-year-old traveler who was doing the trek for the seventh time, Ashwini was introduced to the philosophy that comes with travel. “The journeys made me discover gratitude, humility. I came to know myself better,” says Ashwini.

Ashik’s draw to travel begins with his explorations in education. Working with schools in Thane as a Gandhi Fellow and setting up libraries in nine rural schools in Maharashtra, Ashik began thinking in terms of education outside the classroom, especially for those who do not fit into the watertight curriculum of established educational policy. “Travel is a great alternative method to learning,” says the 26-year-old from Thrissur.

Preksha Singh, has spent the past few years understanding education through different lenses- from coaching school leaders for two years in a public school system as a Gandhi Fellow, to spending a month experiencing a student’s life in an urban slum of Thane, to spending four months traveling to different schools in India - understanding varied education models.

The university provides three kinds of learning. First is Swaraj Yatra, which is a journey to explore, understand and dive deeper into the Gandhian thought of SWARAJ. This understanding is well supported by travelling and meeting individuals and communities who are experimenting and consciously trying to implement Swaraj in their lives. Second is Vimukt Shiksha Yatra, which is an exciting weeklong journey of learning & unlearning, collective dreaming, reclaiming and reimagining higher education. The Yatra is envisioned with an intention to inspire ideas, learning, and collaboration. It encompasses visits to multiple experiments working on learning and education in various parts of India. The last is Cycle Yatra, which is a unique journey, designed for real seekers, who intend to experience gift culture, real connections without gadgets and money, with the communities that have been practising unique lifestyles since generations. The yatris cycle through jungles and communities, learning from the locals and earning food while creating connections and offering labor of love. The yatris thus explore the real treasure of rural lifestyle and wisdom.

The university also conducts workshops on travel hacks and transition from a tourist to a traveller, Conversations on Travel - life, experiments, learning’s and more, and transition programs. With such innovative thought, travellers' university is reimagining learning

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