Vila - Sustainable School IV

Vila is a project for a school, which is developing a pedagogical model and an innovative curriculum aiming to contribute to a sustainable and collaborative society. The goal is to provide an educational experience in which children and young people can live creative, committed, and participatory lives and be critically aware of themselves and the world, in a happy and free manner.

Since 2020, Vila has had a class of elementary school children experiencing learning in an urban community in Lisbon with community gardens, agro-forestry, a park, a room, and in public neighbourhood rooms. In order for Vila to be a school, it is required to have a licensed building. 

To finance this project, the promoter intends to raise €500.000 through four campaigns with Goparity. 

The funds raised through the first three campaigns (Vila - Sustainable School I, II and III) were used to purchase the building to open a sustainable school of reference, to purchase additional land next to the building, and to start the licensing process. The promoter intends at this stage to invest in green outdoor spaces and infrastructure to be placed in the gardens that will allow children to use the space starting next school year and that more children attend Vila.

The funds raised through this fourth campaign will be used to:

• Build an open space infrastructure in the gardens.
• Rehabilitate the outdoor green spaces of the school's property.
• Install solar panels, a compost center, a dry toilet, vegetable gardens and a water reuse system.

The space will provide full schooling for the children already enrolled in the project and welcome many more, including those on the waiting list. Vila aims to cover all education cycles, from kindergarten to high school.

Environmental sustainability, emotions and interpersonal relationships, human rights, gender equality, arts and crafts, multiculturalism, and learning through community projects of social and ecological innovation are curricular pillars to be developed by a multidisciplinary team, gathering as key references practices from Open Learning school, Waldorf pedagogy, Social-Emotional and Ethical Curriculum (SEE Learning), and Green School.

The children who currently attend the Vila in the neighbourhood classrooms will be involved in the coming months in the rehabilitation of the gardens, the creation of ecological systems, and the preparation of the "temple" outside - an open space that will be the heart of the school. This campaign will enable transforming and using the new spaces, opening more vacancies next year.

Tiago Vieira de Sousa is the author of the image above and the architect responsible for the structure's design. He is working closely with Vila to develop costume designs for the school project.