Call – Open School for Village Hosts
Applications are open to join the Open School for Village Hosts, of which Wonder Grottole is a partner. We are looking for people or groups already active in the territory who have new ideas to develop (spin-offs of their current projects) or who want to implement what they are already doing.
The school will teach/guide:
-mapping the existing resources in the territories/reference communities;
-connecting them to each other;
-identifying opportunities by turning them into events/activities or new social enterprises.
The Open School for Village Hosts will allow you to:
-acquire new skills,
-new knowledge (networking with Italian and other 5 European country projects)
-develop your pilot project with the support of experts in social innovation, local development, community building, co-creation and circular economy.
Training will start in March 2023, will last six months, and will have three phases:
– online, on our rural e-learning and networking platform (March, April 2023);
– on the ground, in Grottole, for 5 days of training (May 2023);
– in your community, for the development of the idea or implementation of the project (June, July, August 2023).
The idea of the Open School for Village Hosts was born in Grottole in 2019, when John Thackara and Andrea Paoletti found themselves reflecting on key people in rural innovation processes in Europe during the Social Food Forum. From a suggestion about the figure of the Village Host, a project involving realities from 7 different countries was born. To learn more, you can read this article published on the Casa Netural blog in which Andrea and John answer some questions about the genesis of the project and the importance of the Village Host figure.
The goal of the Open School for Village Hosts is to provide activists in rural areas of Europe with the opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge through a training program that will help them develop sustainable pilot projects at the local level.
If you are interested in becoming a Village Host, apply your idea or project to be tested through the first training program for activists in rural areas of Europe, which also includes 5 days of free training in Grottole next spring.
Deadline: January 20, 2023
Read the full call and send your application here.