NEO Project: the Immersive School for the ecological transition in mountain areas
In the heart of the Apennines, the first immersive, applied and professional school specialised on inner mountain areas. Participants develop the necessary skills to accompany communities and administrations towards a real ecological transition, and to seize the political, cultural and socio-economic opportunities involved in inner areas neopopulation. The objective of NEO is to channel expertise into inner areas, so that they become decentralised hubs in which to design an alternative future.
Local
Italy
The project takes place in Gagliano Aterno (AQ) - Abruzzo region, Italy, but the participants come from all over Italy.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Montagne in Movimento Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Giulia Last name of representative: Ferrante Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: vice-president Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Librice 2 Town: Gagliano Aterno (AQ) Postal code: 67020 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 335 654 4905 E-mail:info@progettoneo.it Website:http://www.montagneinmovimento.it
Name of the organisation(s): Comune di Gagliano Aterno Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Luca Last name of representative: Santilli Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Mayor Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: P.za Municipio Town: Gagliano Aterno Postal code: 67020 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 331 740 3534 E-mail:info@comunegaglianoaterno.it Website:https://www.comune.gaglianoaterno.aq.it/
WHAT
The NEO Project - New Hospitable Experiences, is an immersive school of community activation and ecological transition, which applies participative and inclusive approaches. The idea of such a school arises in 2022, after one year of an action-research applied anthropology project in the municipality of Gagliano Aterno, which was carried out in an experimental way by a group of young social scientists and sponsored by the mayor, which later became the Montagne in Movimento Association.
The pilot of NEO ran between July and December 2022. The first national call attracted 23 applications. The six selected participants became part of the immersive training school whose macro-themes were neo-population of inner areas and ecological transition.
The next call will be open on February 2023. After the selection, six participants will become part of the community of Gagliano Aterno and the research group of the MIM Association for six months.
GOALS
Contemporary challenges increasingly stimulate the design of pathways capable of responding to major global crises. Mountainous countries are a fertile field in which to experiment inclusive forms of ecological transition and radical socio-economic transformations: also, many intangible processes are involved crucially in those transformations.
In order to respond to these challenges, it is necessary to intercept young people with heterogeneous skills and multidisciplinary backgrounds, by offering training focused on engaging, accompanying, activating and supporting the local marginalised communities and entrepreneurial realities, starting from the Abruzzo region.
HOW
The theory is always paired with practical activities, developed by tutored participants, which start from the immersive residence in the village. It also includes visitings to innovative experiences related to living marginal areas and implementing ecological transition actions in the Abruzzo region but also across the Apeninnes and Alps areas.
InnerPeripheries
Neopopulation
ImmersiveTraining
EcologicalTransition
Inclusion
Sustainability is the founding and defining aspect of the NEO project. Through education, the project aims to train for an alternative approach to inhabiting the world by implementing the energy and ecological transition. To achieve it, it starts from the mountain areas. Mountain areas, despite the processes of depopulation, depletion and abandonment by the politics in the last decades, play a fundamental role in regulating ecosystem services, preserving biodiversity, maintaining rivers and forests and preventing natural disasters. Henceforth, the life on the cities and urban spaces depends on the wealth of mountain and rural areas. They are also natural sources of many forms of energy and places of neighbouring communities where participatory and shared energy management models can be realised. It is no coincidence that the training takes place in Gagliano Aterno, where the first energy community in Abruzzo region was set up in 2021. It is also th first energy community experience in a mountainous (marginalisation) context and among the first experiences in Italy. One of the three key modules of the training, projects and field visits is entirely dedicated to this aspect for its relevance in implementing the ecological transition, In this way, the initiative brings together the needs for skills development (both practical and theoretical) in the area of both social, environmental and economic sustainability and can be a model for bringing together the needs of different initiatives at the European level: the European Green Deal, skills development in sustainability and regeneration, along with the long-term vision for rural areas and combating the depopulation of the European Inner Peripheries by training young people in green lifestyles and jobs. In this way it combines sustainability, inclusion and contributes to reverse the shrinking of rural areas, particularly in Southern Europe.
The aspect of aesthetics and the quality of the experience is fundamental to achieving the project goals. In fact, the project is based on the assumption that the ecological and energy transition and the reversal of depopulation processes have a strong cultural component. Which explains why the applied anthropology and social science is such relevant. The process of cultural change takes time and aesthetics is an accelerator. This is why the design of the project includes several immersive moments in the culture and life of the village. This is also the reason why the training is not limited to meetings with subject matter experts, but is developed through total immersion in the life of the village from which the customs and practices of local life are drawn. It also includes inter-generational sharing of knowledge and encounters with innovative realities of the area. This aspect is also taken care of through the informal sharing of knowledge, as trainers and participants are asked not only to do two hours of training together, but also to spend the day sharing, to take walks in the village and the paths that branch off it, and to benefit from being immersed in the natural setting of the Sirente-Velino Regional Park. The expectation is that the cultural and aesthetic sharing of the landscape and traditions will be a more impactful and immersive training method than face-to-face training alone (though necessary as well). In addition to organised moments of sharing with the villagers for inter-generational exchange, much space is left for discovery and immersion in the culture of the place. From here and from the total immersion in the natural, scenic and architectural beauty, cultural benefits and positive emotions are derived that can add value to the design aspect of the initiative and the successful outcome of the project.
The project respects the characteristics of social inclusion starting with accessibility and affordability for anyone interested, being totally free for participants. Selected participants are provided with accommodation and training thanks to public and private funding through partnerships set up by the NEO project team. The only costs borne by the participants are those for living in the village, in which, however, new social models of living in the mountains are also experimented. For example, there is nothing but a café (called “circolo”) which drives people to seek alternative activities than consumerism. So mechanisms can be activated whereby participants help local farmers to harvest potatoes in the flood season and receive part of them as a gift in exchange for the help received (which really happened in 2022). Many spontaneous mechanisms of mutual aid are activated in which the new inhabitants bring energy and help the local population who, following the more traditional social models of exchange and sharing, reciprocate with primary goods and services.
Moreover, among the proposed activities is a social garden, so that training in the self-production of raw materials such as vegetables can be offered, but it is also a way of both socialising and reducing living costs.
Ultimately, the Immersive School takes place in the area of Abruzzo considered the one that lost the most of population in the last century and at risk of abandonment. Hence, is also a social opportunity for those living there to stay. Furthermore, inclusiveness also extends to the fact that there are no fixed barriers to participation in the training and, especially in the 2023 edition, based on the results of last year's pilot, the invitation to participate is open to all inhabitants of the valley and those interested in training on the topics covered. The aim is to further encourage exchange and encounters and provide a different cultural offer to inhabitants of the area.
Compared to a classic training course, the Immersive School provides a first-hand experience of life in a mountain village in transformation. Therefore, the relationship and the benefit from this interchange with the inhabitants are pivotal both for the success of the project and above to achieve its main goal: to facilitate living in the Inner (Peripheral) Areas, thanks to the encounter between citizens and new inhabitants and the development of new virtuous relationships. Before issuing the 2023 edition, it was firstly asked to the inhabitants: how are they experiencing the projects in the village; what have they understood about the process of neo-population. The feedback helped to better structure the new edition. If on the one hand in 2021-2022 the process had a spontaneous inclusion of the newcomers, still it was important to have a better structured engagement. So citizens themselves are sharing what activities they would like to do with the new settelers and what they expect. They are also involved in the participatory process of candidates’ selection. When the participants arrive, those with willingness and interest in involving the new inhabitants in day-to-day activities will be directly included in the project. For the others, moments of awareness are created, such as village open assembly once a month. In those moments are introduced the new inhabitants and what they will do in the area. This facilitation encourage the positive settlement of the new inhabitants into the existing social fabric. Finally, the participation of newcomers in the daily life of the village fosters encounters with the entire population, also thanks to their active role in the organisation of festivals, fairs and cultural events in the village. In this sense, we talk abot a multi-level of the village's citizenship with respect to the project.
The NEO school has seen a major implementation of the pilot phase in view of the 2023 edition. To date, a multidisciplinary design team is working on the planning and training offer, with the support of academic and corporate partners, but also through the involvement of the Gagliano Aterno community. This makes the initiative locally, regionally and nationally relevant.
On a local level, the local municipality is an official partner, while the community is involved starting with the collection of feedback on the pilot edition; then, a 'local committee' will be formed in the participant selection phase; finally, members of the community will support the organisation in mediating the presence of participants in the village.
At the regional level, the Hubruzzo Foundation, the G. D'Annunzio Chieti-Pescara University, the University of Teramo and the University of L'Aquila are involved - both as sponsors and as external consultants. Since the municipality of Gagliano is within the 2009 earthquake crater, the USRC (Special Office for the Reconstruction of the Crater Municipalities) is also involved as a partner and, in 2024, the NEO school is expected to be extended throughout the seismic crater of 2009, which includes more than 50 municipalities in L’Aquila province. Symbola foundation brings knowledge on sustainability, culture and innovation.
In addition, Impresa21 and SunCity - already partners in the Renewable Energy Community project - support the school and will be involved in the training programme. The national university partners, on the other hand, are the GREEN Centre of the University of Valle d'Aosta, the BIOCULT Centre of University of Molise and Polytechnic University of Turin, which is already working with the local administration, again with the aim of providing scientific advice and enriching the training programme.
The partnership is being formalised in an official agreement. The aim is to ensuresustainability, relevance and in the long-term.
The Immersive School includes formal and informal education through:
Theoretical-inspirational meetings
In-site projects and applying theory into practice
Sharing of experiences and case studies
A caravan to get to know other realities in Abruzzo and beyond
The full programme runs over six months, ensuring the balance between the immersive experience in the village and the provision of training and inspiration.
The marco-areas of the school are addressed with a multidisciplinary educational offer.
In 2023 edition, there are three main topics:
Renewable Energy communities: towards ecological transition in the mountains
Communities activation: practices, techniques and methods
Territorial transformation: policies, history and geography of Inner and Apennine areas
Each of them includes several modules with trainers, professors and experts on the field from all over Italy.
The main focuses are: Fundamentals of Alpine anthropology; Fundamentals of public, applied, transformative anthropology; Fundamentals of political ecology; Cultural and socio-economic history of the Apennines; Ecological transition and Renewable Energy Communities (REC); Community economies; Gender issues; Social inclusion; Design of participatory processes and community engagement.
The theory is always paired with practical activities, which are developed by tutored participants, thanks to the immersive residence in the village.
The last layer of the education path for participants is provided by meeting experiences across the Abruzzo region and beyond in the Apennines and the Alps, with communities implementing ecological transition and experimenting new forms of living in marginalised contexts.
The main innovative aspect of the initiative is that, for the first time, it bundles:
Neopopulation as a response to the 'demand for nature'. offering the possibility of experiencing living in a mountain village that is redesigning its future, seeing its processes and progress, and deciding whether to stay or realise it elsewhere
Constructing new ways of inhabiting the world in a sustainable way, through the active participation of citizens and new inhabitants, favoring interculturality and intergenerationality
Crossing the theme of living in the mountains with the energy and ecological transition, favoring the acceleration in the development of practices and projects on the ground
The need for a new way of performing education and training that is not only theoretical but also informal and practical, which includes involvement and aesthetics in the pleasure of action, providing tools and practices for living in an alternative way.
Gagliano Aterno is a village severely wounded by the 2009 earthquake and where a significant material reconstruction process of both public and private structures is underway. This context offers the perfect space for experimenting the intersection between material and immaterial reconstruction. In fact, the project focuses on the immaterial part of reconstruction, working simultaneously with the reopening of the infrastructures to immediately ask the question of who will inhabit and use the regenerated material assets. This is a strong innovative component in the approach to needs and projects underway to create a unique process of integrated territorial regeneration.
Last but not least, an immersive training of this magnitude is carried on in a small mountain village which simultaneously:
-is far from the services and cultural centres,
-lacks the aggregation spaces are being rebuilt after the earthquake and
-phased a long process of abandonment in recent decades.
This is another innovative component of the training model.
After analysing the first experimental phase, designed the 2023 edition of the project, the goal is to make the Immersive School format a replicable methodology in other contexts. First of all, replicability has already been planned for 2024 in other villages in the Abruzzo region with a similar post-disaster context to that of Gagliano Aterno and where material and non-material reconstruction are key to local development.
However, considering the relevance of the theme of neopopopulation in marginal rural areas, addressed in Italy by the cohesion policy with the National Strategy for Inner Areas, but also referable to the Inner Peripheries mapped at a European level with similar characteristics, the project has a high level of replicability. Especially in post-disaster contexts and those undergoing reconstruction and regeneration.
In view of the ever-increasing demand for processes that are able to train and prepare for ecological transition and the activation of energy communities, a model such as NEO's that combines the needs of mountain territories with their resources and potentials has a high transformative value if disseminated in larger contexts.
Before codifying the methodology and approach, we will evaluate the results on Gagliano Aterno between 2021 and 2023 and then propose scalability in European rural contexts. Territorial contexts such as those in Southern Europe, but also in the Western Balkans, are particularly well suited to transpose this type of methodology and process. In fact they face very similar climatic, environmental and social challenges, starting with the population shrinking of rural areas and the diaspora of young people towards the cities or towards Northern and Central European countries.
NEO project was created and designed by Montagne in Movimento. Since 2019, MIM involves a wide network throughout the Italian mountain territory and aims to investigate and compare the complexity of these territories, promoting attention to local needs and networking resources and opportunities.
NEO project takes place in a village involved in a process of regeneration, implying that social and cultural innovation is useful to communities if and when it is harmonised with processes that are already in action. Participative methods and action-research approaches require the ability to deconstruct and look at reality as multi-scalar, with the mission of promoting polyphonic and participatory narratives of peripheral areas. These are the principles that NEO school stems from, aiming at using theories and methods of applied anthropology in the mountains as tools to accompany administrations and local communities in processes of change, but also at valorising the many bottom-up processes that make mountain territories alternative, sustainable and active citizenship models of development. So, the school proposes a 6 months residence of young students, researchers and/or professionals, where theory and practice are evenly balanced. The school is immersive: by living in Gagliano 24/7, it allows a deeper perspective on local issues. Teamwork is essential to the training, since it encourages multidisciplinary approaches; participants are also requested to help in smaller projects that the village is involved in, as both a learning-by-doing tool and a way to make their own background fruitful. NEO is inclusive: the program and the accommodation are completely free; previous experience is not necessary, as mentors and tutors are meant to support and advise both the group and individuals for the whole six months, while the selection process prioritises motivation and sharing of the initiative's fundamental principles.
NEO project was designed and imagined as a cog in the wheel to solve global challenges such as the ecological and environmental crisis, coupled with the energy crisis. Those global challenges are combined with the challenge of reducing the territorial inequalities that lead to fewer services in marginal rural and mountainous lands. Historically, this led to a slow process of depopulation in the post-war period, which causing high concentration in cities and coasts.
NEO project aims to act on the local level and challenge the contradictions of development to provide answers to global social and environmental challenges. While the energy crisis and the impact of climate change and the high risk of biodiversity loss are major global challenges, the answers can only be local and in the rebalancing of rural and urban, favouring a healthier exchange and knowledge than the current extractivism of rural resources in favour of the growth of urban agglomerations. Even the environmental crisis affecting cities, which are increasingly the victims of extreme weather phenomena, pollution and problems due to overcrowding, can only be resolved by re-balancing the relationships and habitability of the highlands in order to maintain ecosystem services and mountain resources, starting with water. This is why training and education are the first gear that must be activated. And for this it must be immersive in order to provide tools for the comprehensive understanding of how to address global challenges at a local level, for example with Renewable Energy Communities or other community economies approaches.
In less then two years, NEO approach brought in Gagliano Aterno:
- 5 inhabitants, directly and indirectly involved in the Immersive School
- 6 participants to the experimental edition of NEO
- 1 participant from NEO is part of the design for the new edition
- More than 50 people (professionals, researchers, social innovators) that lived temporarily (fora weekend to up to a month) in the village to understand the process ongoing and support its evolution
- 10 partners involved in the 2023 edition
- The activation of other 4 projects connected to the topics of living the mountains
What we expect for the evolution of the process is:
2021 - spontaneous trial
2022 - pilot version and experimentation
2023 - beta version and structuring of the initiative, privately financed
2024 - structured formalisation of the process and methodology for intangible reconstruction in earthquake-affected villages (2009 and 2016-17 seismic craters)
At the same time, we are working on the codification of the methodology and the process for replicability in other regions in Italy and Europe, with particular reference to rural and mountain regions with a high risk of depopulation and with strong potential from the ecological and energy point of view to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal.
The results we aim to achieve are:
- Train along the way 6 more new inhabitants in 2023 and consolidate the pathway and methodology, as well as increase and strengthen the working team
- Structure the programme to be replicated in at least 5 more municipalities in 2024
- Participate in a European project for the scalability of the project in other rural contexts and exchange good practices through participation in European calls for proposals in 2024-25.
The project is relevant for the European competence framework on sustainability as it is build on learning for the green transition and sustainable local development applied to marginalised contexts such the mountainous areas.
Its deployment contributes to the EU Commission efforts to:
create a shared understanding on the deep and transformative changes needed in education and training for sustainability and the green transition
Its added value is the modelisation of a place-based education action which not only contributes to developing sustainability skills but at the same time to achieve the Long-term Vision for the EU’s Rural Areas -Towards stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous rural areas by 2040.
Focusing on inner and mountain areas, also ensure the green transition is not leaving anyone behind but rather turns places at the inner peripheries of Europe at the core of innovation in training and sustainability transition.
