Rethinking Sustainable Learning Communities for Extraordinary Times | An EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program

Today PASCAL inaugurates a new programme directed at the recovery of communities from the coronavirus epidemic.  The term “community” has been used a lot in the media in reference to the social context in which people are at higher risk of getting infected. We are interested in “community” as the social context in which people cope with the pandemic in ways that make the places where they live stronger and more resilient. We are not waiting 3 or 5 years to find out what people did in 2020; we want to capture their experience, and their learning as their communities apply an integrated approach to learning-city and neighbourhood development.

The EcCOWell 2 Community Recovery Programme will be developed in two stages. The initial stage in 2020 is directed at rethinking current practices in learning communities of all sizes. A series of stimulus papers  on resilience, mental health, environment policy, and lifelong learning, among other topics, will appear over the coming months.  A PASCAL report on the insights gained, to be prepared by the end of 2020, will help many more communities recover in ways that make them more sustainable. The second stage in 2020 will focus on recovery, understanding that the process is unlikely to be linear and sequential, and that each community will advance at a different pace.

The new programme builds on the PASCAL EcCOWell 2 initiative with its emphasis on integrated holistic development, connecting health, environment and learning objectives.  The city of Cork (Ireland) has been a leader in applying EcCOWell principles.

Information on the programme is available in the PASCAL paper which is released today, and includes a list of participating learning cities in Asia, Europe and North America.

Co-conveners are Peter Kearns ([email protected]) and Denise Reghenzani-Kearns ([email protected]).

Rethinking Sustainable Learning Communities for Extraordinary Times
An EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program

A growing series of shocks to our sense of accustomed ways and normalcy has surged to a climax in the overwhelming social and economic impact of coronavirus. Traditional ways will no longer do, as governments everywhere are realising in their extraordinary actions and responses.

While we have been confronted in recent times by the global impact of the demographic revolution with ageing populations, the surging effects of climate change, and the looming impact on jobs and our society of the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the impact of the coronavirus takes all this dislocation to a new level and demands fresh thinking for a new world.

Rethinking responses to a world of fast-moving radical change brings community learning processes to the fore as the way in which communities can be empowered to understand, and then respond to the realities of this new era in human history. This gives to new significance to the idea of learning cities and communities, while also requiring that we ‘reimagine’ and then rethink how these ideas can be adapted to the post coronavirus world, including the often preconceived idea that a learning city is within the physical confines of a place-based model of learning. As a small contribution to this task, this paper takes up the question of how PASCAL's work on the EcCoWell concept of integrated holistic development could be adapted to test various aspects of resilient learning communities and how they survive and thrive in this environment.

UNESCO in setting up the International Commission on the Futures of Education in 2019 directed the efforts of the Commission at how “knowledge, education, and learning can be reimagined in a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and precarity”.

While the effects of the coronavirus pandemic mean that we need to rethink our world in all dimensions.  This UNESCO call for action on knowledge, education, and learning is a good starting point as key aspects of building a sustainable world.

The UNESCO contribution further exists in the Global Network of Learning Cities administered by UIL. PASCAL has an MOU with UIL so that we collaborate in developing ideas about learning cities and communities.

The PASCAL response

The immediate PASCAL response takes four forms.

1. The consolidation of a series of policy review papers on learning cities that will be published in the Republic of Korea by the National Institute of Lifelong Learning (NILE) in Korean and English, and then in Mandarin in advance of the PASCAL conference in Taiwan in 2021, reflecting important aspects of PASCAL work on learning cities over the last decade.  It is recognised that new issues now need to be addressed in the looming post-coronavirus world so that it is likely that PASCAL will issue further policy review papers on these issues;
2. The further development of EcCoWell ideas on an integrated holistic approach to sustainable learning cities and neighbourhoods, as an EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program after the coronavirus pandemic. Information on this program is set out below;
3. Leading the strand of activity concerned with cities and communities within an initiative being led from the University of Florence entitled, Research and practices to reach a sustainable and healthy economic and social recovery post-COVID-19 [1];
4. Developing a webinar series on Learning Cities with the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning and other actors in the field, which will run from June to November 2020.

The EcCoWell approach

The EcCoWell approach was developed by PASCAL in 2012 as a way of integrating the strands of city development in a more holistic approach. In developing this approach, PASCAL drew on the experience of cities participating in PIE, the PASCAL program of exchanges between learning cities.

The city of Cork became the international leader in EcCoWell development with its status as an innovative learning city confirmed when Cork was invited by UNESCO to host the Third UNESCO International Conference on Learning Cities in 2017. EcCoWell ideas were built into the Cork Call for Action on Learning Cities, resulting from the conference, with its advocacy of green, healthy learning cities.

The connected trio of health, environment, and learning objectives built into the Cork Call for Action “to build mindful learning cultures in our cities that foster global consciousness and citizenship through local action to implement the SDGs” (UIL 2017) reflected the core of EcCoWell thinking on learning communities up to that time. Connecting community, learning, and health was perhaps the core of this stage of EcCoWell development which was then reflected in the 2018 report of the PASCAL/PIMA SIG[2] on Towards Active Ageing for All, (Kearns 2019) and is central to the work of the Centre for Sustainable Healthy Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods[3] at the University of Glasgow.

PASCAL reviewed its work on EcCoWell in 2017 adding entrepreneurship, and happiness and well-being to the EcCoWell concept, while also recognising the significance of learning neighbourhoods as the context where the EcCoWell objectives needed to be achieved The addition of happiness and wellbeing recognised the growing significance of mental health in a word of constant change and dislocation. PASCAL Policy Review papers have supported this range of EcCoWell objectives.

Building resilient communities for bad times

It is well established that social infrastructure is important in ensuring that communities can weather man-made and natural disasters. The work of the Rockefeller Foundation in its 100 Resilient Cities program confirmed the significance of social cohesion in what Judith Rodin (2014) has called “the resilience dividend”. Resilience expert Michael Berkowitz, the former director of the 100 Resilient Cities program, added that “the trick is linking different goals together” (CITYLAB 2020). This is the EcCoWell approach.

If communities are to benefit from the “resilience dividend” in their recovery from the devastation of coronavirus, there will need to be, in the words of Phil Nyrick (2020) from a placemaking perspective, “creative local responses taking shape around the world, fuelled by social capital that built over time.”

While social capital built over time is one of the foundations of the resilience dividend, the question arises starkly for many communities: how do we accelerate this process in supporting the resilience of communities in this era of extraordinary challenges?

PASCAL experience with EcCoWell initiatives is a contribution to this large question and will be taken further in the initiative discussed below as an EcCoWell 2 Recovery Program from the coronavirus pandemic.

EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program after the coronavirus pandemic

The PASCAL experience with EcCoWell, as has occurred since 2012, will be harnessed in “reimagining” the learning community role. This will occur in “live” times of crises, as well as in the period after the coronavirus pandemic.

As this will require much interaction between communities to build fresh ideas, PASCAL has developed a program with two stages:

• an interactive rethinking preparatory stage during 2020, based on sharing ideas and experience by the participating communities; and
• an implementation stage from 2021 occurring post-COVID-19.

The essence of the 2020 rethinking preparatory stage is directed at creative responses to the challenges of the post-coronavirus era. The components in the program have been lightly defined as objectives drawing on the EcCoWell experience since 2012 with each participating community (or neighbourhood) deciding its own EcCoWell 2 recovery program. The following parameters with six action areas have been used in consultation with the participating cities and neighbourhoods. A number of learning communities (cities and neighbourhoods) with a demonstrated record for innovation have been invited to become the core network of the EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program with a focus on the following six actions. The program will then be open to other communities to join the programme following the inception stage.

1. Strengthening community bonds and citizenship in learning neighbourhoods and addressing exclusion, including ways of keeping older people socially engaged;
2. Building further community learning strategies for health and well-being, with an initial focus on mental health;
3. Encouraging enterprise development and entrepreneurship in neighbourhoods;
4. Finding ways to promote digital learning for all age groups;
5. Action towards developing a green stimulus program for the post-coronavirus society and economy;
6. Harnessing cultural institutions and libraries in building a sustainable learning culture in the community.

Recovery in a number of stages

The EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program recognises that recovery from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will occur in several stages. While we have only identified two stages in this paper ‘rethinking’ in 2020, ‘recovery’ in 2021), we appreciate that recovery is likely to occur in a number of stages as immediate priorities are addressed. McKinsey & Company in a paper on the path to the next normal identified five stages in the recovery process: 1. resolve, 2. resilience, 3. return, 4. re-imagine, 5. reform (McKinsey, 2020).

While we have in this paper recognised resilience and reimagining as key parts of the recovery process, resulting at some stage in reform of education, training, and community policies, the recovery process is unlikely to be linear and sequential as each participating community will need to determine the pattern and pace of recovery best suited to their situation. However, it is likely that the interaction of the ‘rethinking’ and ‘recovery’ stages will include an assessment of the adequacy of the processes and resources brought into this pattern of recovery and preparation for future disasters. Resilience takes on heightened meaning in this context.

Flexibility, agility, and sharing ideas

As the essence of the EcCoWell 2 Recovery Program is flexibility in response to local needs, agility in adopting new ideas, and creativity through a process of building on shared ideas, each participating city or neighbourhood is free to determine their own EcCoWell 2 Recovery Program while having regard to the objectives listed above in this transition period to a post-coronavirus era. Stimulus papers on important aspects of community recovery will be circulated to participants each month. A list of the monthly stimulus papers is given in Appendix 2. Blogs in response to these papers may be lodged on the PASCAL website to encourage further discussion.

October report on ideas and progress

All participants in this EcCoWell 2 program will send a short report (around 1,500-2,000 words) to PASCAL during October on developments on any or all of the 6 themes set out in this paper, with ideas for the post-coronavirus future. These reports will be consolidated into a PASCAL report on Stage One of the PASCAL EcCowell2 Community Recovery Program which will be available for participants, and for a wider audience on the PASCAL website. This report is expected to be along the lines of the PASCAL and PIMA SIG report Towards Good Active Ageing for All.

While a city or locality may have a more comprehensive Recovery Program in its communities, a learning neighbourhood participant may decide to focus on one or two  of these objectives, while also having regard to the holistic approach that crosses different portfolios of government, and which draws on multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary knowledge, that is central to EcCoWell2. The post-coronavirus era will provide opportunities to view these objectives in new ways in the quest for a sustainable future.

Short profiles of the participants in the EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery Program are given in Appendix 1.

References

CITYLAB. (2020) What a coronavirus recovery could look like. Interview with Michael Berkowitz on 23 March , 2020. Available on https://www.citylab.com/environment/2020/03/coronavirus-urban-resilience-community-economies-covid-19/608422/.  Accessed on 24 March 2020.

Kearns, P. (2019) Policy for Good Active Ageing in Australia: Progress and challenges. Available at http://pobs.cc/1m3pq. Accessed 6 April 2020.

Kearns, P. & Reghenzani-Kearns, D. (Eds.) (2018) Towards Active Ageing for All: Report of the PASCAL & PIMA SIG on learning in later life. https://ala.asn.au/towards-good-active-ageing-for-all/. Accessed 7 April 2020.

McKinsey & Company. (2020) Beyond coronavirus: The path to the next normal. Available at http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-sevices-insights. Accessed on 9 April 2020.

Rodin, J. (2014) The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong. New York: Public Affairs.