Article by  Laure Hubert-Rodier, Ufisc

The Social Solidarity Economy movement in Europe, as in other parts of the world, proposes itself as a transformative actor able to bring together different initiatives in an integral response: social inclusion, territorial cohesion, local development, ecological transition, agroecology, ethical finance…

The experiences of SSE, rooted in many territories, in rural or urban areas, have a great role in promoting involvement, active participation and civic engagement of citizens and communities: they can show more directly the transformative impact of actions in the daily lives of people and territories as well as activate a cultural change that has a positive social and economic impact. Participatory development is an essential approach towards enabling communities to emancipate and promote territorial cohesion.

This is why Solidarius Italia has launched the European project LOOKING UP – A training path from experiences of local development towards European Social Solidarity Economy strategies ! This Erasmus+ project began on April 1st 2024 and will take place until September 2025. This project aims to give relevance to the economic, social, cultural and capability heritage of networks and territorial organisations of Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) in the framework of the European strategy of participatory and multi-level local development.

Through LOOKING UP, Solidarius Italia (Italy) brings together two other European partners, involved in civic, cultural and social life: CRIES (Romania) and UFISC (France), in collaboration with RIPESS Europe (Luxembourg). Each partner has invited 2 local referents to take part in the project to reflect on the online training content and serve as case studies.

From September 2024 to June 2025, 3 peer-to-peer trainings will take place in the format of online webinars to enable organisations from all Europe to participate on 3 specific topics:

  • Networking and the development of solidarity and community economies in urban and rural areas, animated by Solidarius Italia with « Giardini dell’Ardiglione» and « Lofoio »
  • Local participatory development and ecological transition in cultural alternative urban places, animated by UFISC with « Le Shakirail» and « Les Poussières »
  • Urban-rural relations through foood and its supply chains, animated by CRIES with « Reciproc / Alimenterra» and « ASAT»

On July 3rd-6th 2024, a first workshop took place in Florence (Italy) with the partners and local referents of the project. The goal of the workshop was to co-design the online training programme, reflecting together, with participatory methodologies, on contents, targets, tools and the pedagogical approach in order to build a learning community. Each partner and local referent were invited to share their experiences, practices and knowledge in local development and participation. It was also the opportunity to visit «Giardini dell’Ardiglione » and « Lofoio », and of course to get to know each other better in the beautiful city of Florence!

What’s next? Thanks to the inputs collected in Florence, the 3 partners are now working on the organisation of the online trainings, which will start place next autumn/winter 2024.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS!

Find more information on the project: https://ripess.eu/en/looking-up-project/