OASIS LEARNING VILLAGE

The Oasis Learning Village is an EU Erasmus + (Key Action 1 mobility for youth workers) supported project, which was developed by 6 European partner organizations Ideen³, ELOS Foundation, GOTEO, Act for Change, Comunitazione, OZ Združenie PRE LEPŠÍ ŽIVOT (Association for a Better Life) and the local partner communitycenter KLARO (Diakonie Braunschweiger Land). 26 participants from Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany came together from 17.-28. of may 2019 for a 10-day action-learning training based on the brazilian methodology Oasis Game developed by Instituto ELOS for community mobilization and community empowerment. The Oasis Game brings together a neighborhood to collectively dream, plan and implement a community project with the goal of strengthening a community spirit, social cohesion,  inclusion, self-efficacy and self-initiative. The learning exchange gave space to explore together  common challenges in youth work and social work in Europe as working with diversity, inclusion of people with a refugee background and revitalization of rural areas.

During the 10 days immersed in the beautiful town of Bad Gandersheim the participants were challenged to mobilize the local community by following the oasis process of listening to, co-designing and hand-in-hand realizing collective dreams with its inhabitants. 3 dreams were realized in 2 days of hands-on: a large community garden, ‘optimist-benches’ to meet and have positive conversations and a pop-up living room event on a public square. The Oasis method offered a learning-by-doing experience to the participants to develop hands-on strategies to current challenges together and learn about community mobilization and empowerment.