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Paideia Campus

CRFS Lab description

At the Paideia Campus in Pollica, you can learn a new type of sociality and live the concept of integral ecology, a regenerative approach to face the transition necessary to achieve the Goals of the 2030 Agenda in lifestyle and development models of which the Mediterranean Diet is the most concrete example.

The key specific objectives, identified needs or problems that the CRFS Lab aims to address:

There are three main areas of intervention:

  • Knowledge: Train agents of change and enhance the value of artistic and cultural heritage.
  • Community: Combat the depopulation of villages by implementing a process of territorial regeneration. Connect global stakeholders and inspire and implement local actions.
  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Create prosperity by supporting young entrepreneurs, farmers, and institutions in innovation processes for sustainable development.
The primary solutions that the lab intends to pursue during project implementation:

“Pollica 2050 – Mediterranean Living,” which focuses on the Mediterranean Diet as a model of Integral Ecological Regeneration, is a strategic project designed to enhance dormant resources. This initiative urges us to think and act in a systemic way, directing every action to create inclusive prosperity, starting from the integral ecological approach, tested over the years and applied in every phase of the project.

This strategy has been prototyped in the field for a year, and today, thanks to the hypothesized management tools, it aims to create a real ecosystem capable of feeding itself and regenerating itself to persist over time. It will diffuse in space so the entire territory can benefit from it. Today, it is necessary to network and be networked for the impact to be truly transformative.

There are six concrete areas of intervention capable of safeguarding the environment, favoring the new generations, guaranteeing social justice for all, and implementing a model of truly sustainable, participatory, and integral development.

Living Lab team
  • Sara Roversi
  • Virginia Cepollina
  • Elisa Carioli
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Learn more about this Lab

Paideia Campus

Italy

Pollica, a rural village in the south of Italy, is the epicenter of Mediterranean lifestyle and the crossover point of history, culture and anthropology of this ancient heritage. The “Paideia Campus” in Pollica, is an experimental center where one can learn a new kind of sociality and live the concept of integral ecology, of which the Mediterranean diet is a concrete example. Everything is connected – environmental protection and human health, regeneration of the territory and citizens’ well-being, social justice, and climate change. The Paideia Campus was created to teach how to see these connections and thus design a better future for Pollica, for the Mediterranean, and for the whole world. We have decided to restart. To invest in our future: YOUNG PEOPLE, focusing on essential values, specifically the balance between MAN-NATURE, from the cradle of our culture: THE MEDITERRANEAN

Paideia Campus is located in the Cilento area Pollica, the epicenter of the Mediterranean lifestyle and the crossover point of history, culture, and anthropology of this ancient heritage with unique characteristics:

CULTURE HISTORY – SCIENCE – PHILOSOPHY

Capital and UNESCO Emblematic Community of the Mediterranean Diet

  • Located halfway between the Archaeological Parks of Paestum & Velia
  • Cradle of the Eleatic philosophy of Parmenides the “philosopher- physicist and philosopher-doctor” and his pupils Zeno and Melisso.
  • Cradle of the Salerno Medical School, the first Western medical school born in the Middle Ages.
  • The place where Ancel and Margaret Keys in the 1970s coined the name Mediterranean Diet, writing the Seven Country Studies.

ENVIRONMENT – LANDSCAPE – BIODIVERSITY

Immersed in the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park, where there are 28 Sites of Community Interest (SIC) and 8 Special Protection Zones, part of the network of Biosphere Reserves of the UNESCO MAB program (with 4 UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Charterhouse of Padula; and the Geo-archaeological Areas of Paestum; Elea; Velia; and the Camerota Quarries); the Mediterranean Park is included in the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage List as a “cultural landscape” of global significance.

ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP – LEGALITY

Pollica, a country that symbolizes legality, has become a model for the whole of Italy, thanks to the mission of Mayor Angelo Vassallo, who gave his life for the regeneration and development of his land. Today in Pollica, we understand the importance and responsibility of educating the new generations to active citizenship for the healthy development of the territories and the protection of knowledge and the environment that welcomes us in complete harmony with the concept of integral ecology.

In Pollica, Future Food Institute (FFI, P23), in collaboration with local institutions and – more importantly – through a process of co-design with the local community, is fostering a prototyping of a historic change of perspective, from linear to circular systems, from reductionist to complex and holistic paradigms, from an ego-centric vision to an eco-centric vision of the role of man in the complex system that links environment, society, and economy. Through this change of perspective, public administration becomes the creator of the enabling environment for the flourishing of good practices; infrastructures are tailored to the needs of the community, which, from being a passive receiver of directives, actively contributes to the life and preservation of traditions and territory; consumers become consumer-actors, and farmers are no longer mere producers of foodstuffs, but true ambassadors-custodians of nature and ecosystems