So many of the skills that we need to live a sustainable life already exist, we just need to learn from each other, and the generations before us. Common Knowledge is a new kind of place for learning, a place that celebrates and shares practical skills to support people to live a truly sustainable life - skills like building, making, mending and growing. By learning these together, across generations and perspectives, we can become more confident, capable and connected as communities.
National
Ireland
Based in the west of Ireland, but with activities in multiple locations and participation from people nationwide
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Common Knowledge Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Fionn Last name of representative: Kidney Gender: Male Nationality: Ireland Function: Co-CEO and Co-Founder Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Common Knowledge HQ Town: Lisdoonvarna Postal code: V95DK38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 85 738 6425 E-mail:fionn@ourcommonknowledge.org Website:http://www.ourcommonknowledge.org
We are Common Knowledge, a non-profit social enterprise in rural Ireland. We believe that a decrease in sharing of practical skills has led to a wider loss of agency, affecting our ability to meet our own basic needs, to solve our own problems and to support each other. So we’ve set up a new type of learning organisation.
Our vision is for a world of confident, capable and connected people, and we believe that this starts in our homes and communities.That’s why our mission is to share skills for a truly sustainable homelife. We do this through hands-on courses, events and community projects. In 2022 alone we facilitated workshops for almost 400 people to build, make, mend and grow over 25 courses, and welcomed over 900 people to events including our heritage-driven intergenerational community project, ‘Rekindle - Festival of Lost Skills’.
The reason we’re focused on sharing practical and traditional skills is that we have seen the transformative mindset shift that learning them can have, inspiring us to take on bigger challenges ourselves or as a community. Our research shows that the greatest takeout of our courses is confidence, which on average, doubles after a week with us at Common Knowledge.
For us, a truly sustainable homelife means that it is sustainable for you, the planet and those around you, but also attainable and maintainable by you. Along with our vision of true sustainability, we value empowerment, and delight, because we believe joy is one of our basic human needs.
In 2023 we will move into a new campus with 50 acres to grow, experiment and explore. We crowdfunded the deposit for the purchase of €60k from our community and are fundraising the balance.
Our ambition over the next three years is to support over 2000 people to achieve a truly sustainable homelife in person and many more online. We are keen to create a model that others can learn from and committed to being open about our experience and approach.
Skills
Sustainability
Housing
Inclusion
Wellbeing
We believe that a truly sustainable homelife needs to be sustainable for the planet without harming others, whilst being attainable and maintainable for you. Our sustainability objectives are:
1. To empower people with real life, hands-on sustainability mindset and skills
Research shows that people want to live sustainably, but lack the skills and mindset to do so. We equip people with the knowledge and experience they need to live sustainably, starting with their own homes. Our residential courses provide a real-life approach to sustainable building and homelife practices. The example this sets is that in order to empower sustainable change, we need to live it at home, and empower an individual and collective sense of agency.
2. To encourage zero-waste and circularity in the home
We bring the simple truths of personal waste, energy usage and material choices to life by applying it to people’s home environment. We focus on reducing waste and consumption in the home by teaching skills for repair, reuse, and repurposing. We apply these principles to people's home environment, promoting a circular economy and sustainable homelife. By sharing the skills necessary to mend and repair our homes and the items within them, in addition to using reclaimed building materials and discarded household waste in our buildings, we’re setting the example for circularity at home.
3. Promoting Community-driven Sustainability
We support the creation of networks to share knowledge, skills, and resources. This objective aims to build strong, resilient, and self-sufficient communities that can work together to solve environmental and social problems, and create a culture of sustainability that emphasises the importance of environmental, social, and economic sustainability in all aspects of life. Our hope is that a cultural shift in the way people think about sustainability at a community level will encourage a more integrated and holistic approach to sustainable living.
To support behavioural change, how we engage people is as important as what we are engaging with. That’s why one of our three values is ‘Delight’, reflecting our aim that everything we create as individuals and a society can be beautiful, delicious, comfortable and inspiring. Our objectives to support this value of delight are:
1. To create new contemporary aesthetic for the promotion of practical skills
Neglected since the dawn of digital, the aesthetics of practical skill sharing is often outdated in its branding, gender orientation or communication style. To engage people who feel like practical skills like building are ‘not for them’, we design our communications to be welcoming, soft, questioning, simple and open. We use friendly visuals and photography that shows diverse groups having sociable learning moments, making Common Knowledge an exemplary case study of aesthetic appeal.
2. To create a new hands-on experiential learning aesthetic
The aesthetic of learning methodology is a central aspect of Common Knowledge. We select our instructors for their ability to relate to and support others before their technical expertise. We empower people to enter the conversation about the design, form and future functions of their home in a way that is warm, inclusive, informal and engaging. By blending classroom and hands on sessions, we engage different learning styles. This style of engagement is exemplary in helping people to feel trusted, included and empowered.
3. To reframe skill sharing as a culturally-rich and communal experience
Using our own previous experience in hospitality and events, we developed Common Knowledge with particular care to the cultural and communal experience. We gather communally during our courses to eat nutritious, consciously-sourced food. Our shared facilities encourage a sense of togetherness and connect people to nature. And our online community keeps the communal experience going after a course.
Inclusion is at the core of how Common Knowledge operates. Our objectives are to:
1. Create access for groups previously excluded from these hands-on skills
In Europe, 97% of builders are men (Eurostat). By extending the conversation beyond it’s traditional base, we ensure our courses are diverse with at least 40% female and 5% non-binary or trans-identified participants, with 19% identifying as non-heterosexual. These groups have told us of growing up feeling that these skills were inaccessible, withheld by educational or family structures. We also undertake Diversity & Inclusion training with all our team. This is exemplary of how to address stereotypes and extend access.
2. Make a sustainable home, and homelife accessible and affordable to all
With many people excluded from purchasing or refurbishing a house, we offer a new pathway by sharing the skills to build or maintain one themselves. 9/10 participants tell us they find our courses value for money, with significant multiplier savings on their house purchase or construction costs. We also offer one place free of charge per course to improve access. We received funding from the Irish government to develop a home-oriented climate action toolkit with LGBTQ+ people in 2023 that will incorporate a cost-free residency for 25 co-design participants and be shared nationally.
3. Celebrate and work with underrepresented groups who have the skills and knowledge to share
Many underrepresented groups have skills that they don’t have the opportunity to share. One example is with the creation of our community festival ‘Rekindle Festival of Lost Skills’, an intergenerational skill sharing festival. In 2023, we are introducing a participative Arts element to this project, to help give a voice to older people’s experience of skill sharing. We are actively working to recruit from new Ukrainian and migrant communities but the need to build relationships and trust to succeed.
Our learning course participants constitute the majority of people we are engaging with. Our theory of change states that through our activities of skills sharing, community building and research and development, we will deliver the outcome of a more confident, competent and connected people, equipped to realise a truly sustainable homelife
The main insight from our research, underpinned by this theory of change, is that our courses deliver on our key outcome of building confidence, with participants reporting that their confidence levels more than doubled in pre and post surveys from 3.5/10 to 7.5/10.
Participants report taking away a high level of new skills and knowledge to create more sustainable homelives, as well as a sense of community, with 98% saying they made new connections and 92% also stating that the courses exceeded their expectations
As part of all our learning programmes, participants input through research and feedback about our learning programmes. The feedback of the courses has informed our programming, shaped our learning plans, our timings and teaching formats and allowed us to refine our teacher to students ratios. In 2023, we will continue to focus our evaluation on confidence, community and capability.
Within our learning programmes we provide our participants the opportunity to share their experiences and perspectives on homelife and housing, which also informs the shape and direction of Common Knowledge activity.
Another key dimension of our impact is on the people who share skills and deliver our courses. The impact of working with Common Knowledge is experience in public engagement, improved skills sharing abilities, increased visibility of their skills and craft, and a source of income to supplement their existing practices. We also provide opportunities for volunteers, who assist with our activities in return for hands-on learning experience with the building, making, mending and growing skills we share.
Locally, we engage regularly with community groups, businesses and public sector representatives. We actively seek out mission-driven collaborators for new proposal proposals that will shape our future activity in response to community needs.
For example, we prototyped our ‘Build School’ course whilst building a HQ for local reforestation social enterprise HomeTree, which supported them in their growth and success since whilst using feedback to inform the design of our Build School course at Common Knowledge.
Another example is our approach is our ‘REKINDLE Festival of Lost Skills’, where we formed links with a number of older people's organisations and the Older People's Council at Clare Co. Council, which informed the design of the festival. We will invite these collaborators to participate and shape this year’s program for Rekindle through a community consultation happening in March.
Nationally, we have received funding from Rethink Ireland, a social innovation fund, and through our participation in their programmes have developed enhanced strategies and plans to position us strongly for development.
We have established a board that draws from people experienced in Irish culture and heritage, leadership development, construction, climate action, psychology, design, innovation and law.
We are yet to create strong links in Europe but we are excited by the visibility that this award could generate for Common Knowledge as a basis to form partnerships in European projects.
Common Knowledge brings expertise from many areas around one question: how can we support people to create a truly sustainable homelife in an inclusive and engaging way?
We have skilled craft and tradespeople in construction, carpentry, heritage skills and restoration, repair, electrics, ceramics, welding and steel fabrication, stonemasonry, growing and permaculture. Between our board and team we have people who are experienced in learning, business design and development, hospitality and food, sustainability, diversity & inclusion, design, product development and events.
The added value of this blend of these experiences, practices and knowledge is that it allows for the integration of diverse perspectives, skills, and knowledge, fostering creativity and generating a more holistic understanding and approach to sustainability that would not have been possible through a traditional siloed approach. Additionally, it allows for the identification of potential barriers and opportunities that are unique to the specific problem or goal.
To bring these perspectives together, we use design-thinking informed meetings, workshops, brainstorming sessions, and project-based collaborative processes to integrate our knowledge and experience, with an emphasis on clear communication, shared goals, and an understanding of each other's expertise and roles. By fostering a culture of mutual respect, open-mindedness, and active listening, we work together to achieve the common goal. We run reviews for all our courses and projects to support continuous learning, communication and improvement.
We have already seen the potential of this approach to generate new and innovative solutions to support people in creating a truly sustainable homelife in an inclusive and engaging way - from our courses, to the impact of the projects we work on.
The ways in which our approach are innovative are:
Combining theoretical and hands-on learning — Our courses combine discussion of key principles with experiential application on real projects. This ensures that people understand the ‘why’ of sustainable practices and materials before they learn the ‘how’.
Combining traditional and contemporary approaches — We blend the traditional and the contemporary, for example, teaching people to use natural materials like lime mortar whilst also incorporating cutting edge materials like mycellium based insulation, and solar technology.
Focus on learning through problem-related storytelling — We put significant focus on the design of our content to make it appealing for participants, and on drawing out and sharing personal experiences to make participation more interesting, relatable and engaging.
Our goal of building community and confidence — Whilst many learning programmes are solely competence based, we focus on building people’s confidence and their overall empowerment.
Emphasis on ‘Delight’ — We value the power of 'delight' and considers joy as one of our basic human needs, this is not often seen in mainstream, conventional, or traditional means of learning these skills.
Community-based approach — The initiative is focused on building skills and confidence within local communities, rather than relying on centralised institutions or experts. This approach allows for the development of solutions that are responsive to the specific needs.
Digital engagement — We use social media and digital platforms to support our community, with an online community called ‘The Commonage’ where people who are interested in learning and skill sharing help each other and connect to work on collaborative projects.
Learning methodology: The foundations of the unique Common Knowledge pedagogy is in facilitating a healthy culture of learning, self improvement and empowerment. It is built up with a detailed, accessible and relatable curriculum and is reinforced with facilitated peer-to-peer and experiential learning which can be adapted and applied in other settings beyond the current reach of our programme.
Non-profit social enterprise model: The governance arrangements, processes, approaches, learnings and insights gained from the Common Knowledge as a social enterprise can be shared and applied in other contexts, including the identification of best practices and areas for improvement.
Educational materials and resources: We are committed to making key toolkits for climate action, product and design projects from our research and development or learning activities available online on an open source basis. An example is our Tigín Tiny Home design, which we will launch in February to enable anyone worldwide to build their own Tiny Home based on our design, which won Wallpaper* Magazine’s ‘Life Enhancer of the Year’ design award in 2022.
Community platform: The community building aspect of the Common Knowledge learning activities and engagement programmes can be replicated and used in other contexts, such as in the creation of a network of learners who can share their knowledge and support each other. Our Community app platform 'The Commonage' could be scaled Europe-wide to encourage collaborative learning and peer support across the EU.
Our learning methodology is founded on the belief that every individual has the potential to start solving their own problems around the home and live more sustainable lives.
We design our curriculum around recurring frustrations or problems around the home. In the process of learning to solve them, participants learn the fundamental principles of the subject and transferable skills within the project that they can carry over to similar projects in their homes.
When designing our courses, we pay particular attention on delivering useful information in an engaging way, matched with sufficient hands-on experience to ensure that information is absorbed, experienced and transferable again in the future.
We have developed a culture of learning that is encouraging, collaborative and accessible to individuals of all demographics and experiences. We employ a diverse range of teachers who all live this culture and trust in the potential of others.
For example, our “introduction to Furniture Design” is a two day workshop in which participants make a hardwood stool for their home. On the course people learn a short history of furniture design, the engineering considerations when designing a piece of furniture, as well woodworking and joining techniques that can be carried across to any number of furniture projects within their home. By learning to make a stool, participants are leaving with the basic confidence and competence to make a bookshelf, a kitchen, or even some repair for a local community organisation.
Our research with participants provides input to our future programmes as well as giving us the ability to measure growth in practical areas and continually improve our methodology. Data from these surveys has been extremely valuable in guiding our teacher to student ratios, the duration of particular subjects and the effectiveness of our techniques in transferring complex information in relatable, understandable ways.
Seen through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, we address global issues with the following local solutions:
Quality Education (SDG 4)
Local Solution: By providing hands-on, experiential learning opportunities in sustainable living, we promote lifelong learning for individuals and communities in the area.
Climate Action (SDG 13)
Local solution: By teaching local participants the fundamentals of structure rather than one specific construction method we are equipping them with the ability to build with sustainable local materials, rather than manufactured and imported materials commonly used.
Reducing Inequality (SDG 10)
Local Solution: We provide access to the knowledge, community and skills that are necessary to access affordable and sustainable housing and homelives in Ireland.
Sustainable Cities & Communities (SDG 11)
Local Solution: We show how our local built environment affects and is affected by our natural environment through local application of permaculture principles.
Responsible Production and Consumption (SDG 12)
Local Solution: By building a local culture of reuse of waste materials, repair and mending we contributed to the establishment of a circular economy.
Good Health & Well-being (SDG 3)
Local Solution: By promoting sustainable living practices such as organic gardening, healthy food preparation, and natural building, we improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities in the area.
Clean Water & Sanitation (SDG 6)
Local Solution: By promoting sustainable water management practices such as rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling, we improve access to clean water and sanitation for individuals and communities in the area.
Affordable & Clean Energy (SDG 7)
Local Solution: By promoting sustainable energy practices such as solar and wind power, and energy-efficient building design, we help to improve access to affordable and clean energy for individuals and communities in the area.
We established Common Knowledge in 2021, with a dream of creating a non-profit social enterprise to run skill-sharing courses and increase people’s confidence, competence and connectivity. 2023 will be another huge leap forward, with the purchase of a new 50 acre home for our activities.
In 2022 we created 8 courses and delivered 25 courses, with 379 participants alongside 4 events, 1 festival and 900+ event attendees. We built and sold four Tiny Homes on our courses, which culminated in a global Wallpaper* Design Award. We had 149k website visitors, and reached 500K+ people and 14,000 new followers on social media. We crowdfunded a €60k deposit for our HQ and earned/raised over €260k in income.
In terms of impact, participants in 2022 reported a 114% increase in confidence levels, improved practical skills and a strengthened sense of connection to their fellow participants. Our target outcomes from 2023 will be confidence, competence and social connectivity, in line with our theory of change.
Now we are focused on strengthening our sustainability as a social enterprise. 2023 will be significant, as we move into our new HQ, a former ecological healing retreat centre that we will repurpose to reflect our values and curriculum, renovating the buildings and regenerating the biodiversity of the land whilst creating income to support our mission.
In the next three years, we will engage more than 3000 in onsite and online courses, build a diverse team with a broadened course programme, and welcome 4000 people to events. We will bring 50+ people through our access programmes, build three community projects. We will create an ongoing relationship with one educational institute and initiate one European project with similar organisations. Finally, based on the success of our Tiny Homes, we will create an R&D pipeline of new products that can help others create a sustainable life whilst generating income for CK.
Our work contributes across the competence areas with particular focus on ‘embodying sustainability values’ and ‘acting for sustainability’.
Acting for Sustainability: Common Knowledge provides hands-on learning opportunities that enable participants to take action for sustainability. By equipping them with the skills and knowledge to build with sustainable local materials, and to create a circular economy, it enables them to become active agents of change in their communities.
Embodying Sustainability Values: Common Knowledge provides a local perspective on sustainability, teaching participants the fundamentals of structure, building with sustainable local materials, and creating a culture of reuse, repair and mending. This helps to develop an understanding of the importance of sustainability values, and how they can be integrated into everyday life.
Embracing Complexity in Sustainability: Through local application of natural building and permaculture principles, Common Knowledge helps participants to understand how the built environment affects and is affected by the natural environment. It encourages them to think critically about the complexity of sustainability issues and to find solutions that take into account the interconnectedness of different systems.
Envisioning Sustainable Futures: By providing access to knowledge, community, and skills, Common Knowledge helps participants to envision and work towards a more sustainable future. We also contribute to the development of sustainable cities and communities through building capacity of our participants to make it a reality. We promote rural development which aligns with the Green Comp's emphasis on sustainable futures and encourage actions for sustainability through our focus on relocating to the countryside and promoting sustainable living practices.
