Social Innovation for Resilient Communities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Innovation for Resilient Communities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The SIRCle Project used adult education to address one of the most pressing needs of our time, namely how to marry grassroots responses to climate and social change with the capacity to make a sustainable living in a challenging economic climate. The project was designed to create an innovative, open source curriculum that integrates training materials and tools for active citizenship with those for social and holistic entrepreneurship. It addressed the needs of adult learners, in particular those living in more disadvantaged areas, who wished to bring together their care for the environment with the ability to establish a source of right livelihood.

Partners each hosted two day-long dissemination events; and ran two Pilot trainings of 5 days each for 14-24 participants. Core materials were translated from English into six other European languages.

The curriculum was developed with a ‘pattern language’ approach where the broad framework of the learning journey and outcomes is outlined, while the detailed content is left to local trainers to decide upon depending on context. The ‘Core Story’ (or ‘syntax’) is the development and empowerment of change-makers and support of their social innovation projects. ‘Learning Patterns’ (the ‘vocabulary’) that support this journey are then used as needed.

The SIRCle Project brought together a diverse range of organisations from Austria, Belgium, Romania, Spain, Portugal and the UK, including a university; two social enterprises, a cooperative, and charities focussing on community-led development.

The Project’s Objectives were to:

1. Create a body of Learning Patterns that foster action towards social entrepreneurship and sustainable and resilient development
2. Modify and adapt the Transition to Resilience, Pioneers of Change, PACTE and other relevant curricula into the new SIRCle curriculum
3. Train a body of trainers to deliver the SIRCle curriculum all over Europe
4. Translate learning materials into the relevant languages, and disseminate them through running two Pilot Courses in each country
5. Empower change makers to establish projects that build resilience and establish sources of right livelihood.

The target groups were:

1. 16 trainers from Partner Organizations becoming certified SIRCle Trainers running SIRCle Courses in their countries. Actual number in the end was 19.

2. We aimed for ⅔ of each training to be made up of disadvantaged youth and adults. In the end, 106 participants were disadvantaged, with a majority of this group being unemployed (the category also included minorities, age above 60 and marginalised groups). 13 participants were 25 years old or younger. Some young people are also disadvantaged, meaning the two groups overlapped somewhat. With a total of 206 pilot participants, this means approximately 55% were disadvantaged or below 25.

3. We aimed for ⅓ of each training to be made up of social entrepreneurs interested in developing enterprises that will benefit disadvantaged youth and adult. The actual number of participants who self-identified as social entrepreneurs when applying for the training was 101, or 49% of the total.

Year One: Capacity Building. Starting in November 2014, two representatives from each Partner organisation met in the Findhorn Foundation ecovillage in Scotland for 5-days to experience one of the cornerstone trainings that the new curriculum has been built on, the Transition to Resilience Training. The curriculum is highly experiential and innovative, using a core ‘story’ as the principal vehicle for the learnings and then adding different ingredients according to the nationality, size and composition of each group.

Partners met monthly online, and in person at regular intervals, to share a variety of training methods and materials in order to create the new Sustainable Innovation for Resilient Communities (SIRCle) curriculum. Alongside the face to face meetings and monthly online conference calls, webinars were conducted and at least 16 15-minute teaching videos produced to augment the trainings.

Years Two and Three: In this phase of the SIRCle Project, each Partner organisation ran 2 Pilot Trainings of the new curriculum. In total, the pilot trainings had 206 participants. The courses comprised around 55% people from the disadvantaged groups and 49% people already active as social entrepreneurs, both expanding their awareness to include issues relating to sustainability. Each group learnt from the other, the final outcome being the creation of several social enterprises in each country that will enable participants to develop a source of livelihood while exhibiting active citizenship in a way that serves the transition to resilient and sustainable communities.

The long term impact of this SIRCle Project is the creation both of at least 18 sustainable ventures in 6 EU countries, and of a cutting edge, innovative curriculum that supports both societal transition and individual sustainability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 445996 Eur

Project Coordinator

Findhorn Foundation & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Still Consulting Sprl
• Asociatia Romania in Tranzitie
• ALTEKIO, INICIATIVAS HACIA LA SOSTENIBILIDAD S. COOP. MAD.
• FUNDACAO DA FACULDADE DE CIENCIAS DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA FP
• Association Européenne pour l’Information sur le Développement Local
• PLENUM – GESELLSCHAFT FUR GANZHEITLICH NACHHALTIGE ENTWICKLUNG GMBH
• GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK