Annual CLIPS Training starts at Torri Superiore

Lucilla Borio, Torri Superiore/RIVE

The first training module on the CLIPS method – Community Learning Incubator for Sustainability – hosted by the Torri Superiore Ecovillage, took place from 16 to 19 March.

The large study group, made up of 26 participants, was conducted by the trainers of the CLIPS Italia team, Lucilla Borio, Giorgia Lattuca , Giulio Ferretto and Riccardo Clemente, under the supervision of Genny Carraro.

This is the first module of a six-stage itinerary, which will be hosted by four other Italian communities: Gaia Terra (Udine – 13/16 April), Borgo Basino (Arezzo – 18/21 May); Ciricea (Pistoia – 8/11 June); Vagamondo Association (Turin – 14/17 September) to conclude again in Torri Superiore (Ventimiglia – 5/8 October).
The training proposal follows years of study and development of CLIPS, a project born in Torri Superiore in 2015 thanks to an Erasmus+ project of the European Union, coordinated by the GEN Europe network with the participation of ten national networks, including the Italian Ecovillage Network (RIVE). The Italian team, internationally accredited, has already offered many short training courses lasting a weekend, and mini intensive courses (L’Essenza del CLIPS) lasting two days, in various parts of Italy.

Explains Lucilla Borio, co-author of the CLIPS manual: “After a period of slowdown in the diffusion of this training course, mainly due to Covid , we have made a great start on the wave of the many requests for support both from communities and ecovillages, and from associations, groups and collective realities of various kinds. The CLIPS model aims to assist groups in growth and development, identifying the five levels that make up their identity according to a concentric model: individual, community, intent, structure and practice. At each level we have identified the building elements, the critical areas and the tensions, and we have, at the European level, assembled a huge collection of collective methods, tools and best practices to manage social dynamics in a collaborative and constructive way, preventing the failure of projects lead by these valuable groups for social change.”

Riccardo Clemente, co-author of the CLIPS game with Giorgia Lattuca and other European partners: “The teaching of CLIPS Italia is based on facilitated, interactive and multisensory learning. We integrate moments of lectures with open debates, work in small groups, experimentation with practical methods and tools, and many moments of play and movement to create a group-community that experiences the four levels of CLIPS within itself, and therefore learns to apply them both at the group itself, both internally and at the external groups to which the participants belong”.

After the introductory module of these days, the following appointments will develop the five levels of the model in depth, gradually creating the path that will lead the participants to become CLIPS Ambassadors and, for some of them, also CLIPS facilitators.

To find out more about CLIPS: https://www.clips-italia.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CLIPS.Italia/
Torri Superiore Ecovillage: www.torri-superiore.org