Vila - Sustainable School III

• Building of an accessible and inclusive school: 500m2 of a building will be renewed to receive the school facilities, with pre-school, 1st and 2nd cycles. Furthermore, there is potential to expand to the 3rd cycle and secondary education.
• Access to quality education, collaborative and for sustainability: 150 (first phase up to 2nd cycle) to 300 children and young people (with 3rd cycle and secondary) with access to a pedagogical model focused on project-based learning, with Waldorf and social-emotional and ethical practices, and of social-ecological innovation, with the main pillars of gender equality and human rights, multiculturalism, participation and community. Also, 14 teachers periodically participate in training in social-emotional curriculum, non-violent communication, practices for Learning Communities, Waldorf pedagogy, gender equality, and human rights.
• Promotion of equal education: focus on the promotion of Gender Equality as a pillar of pedagogy, and on equality in the choice of professions, areas of interest, life projects, and sport.
• Promotion of community empowerment and resilience activities: a community of 3000 people in one school cycle is impacted through extracurricular programs in community gardens and agroforestry. The school curriculum strengthens values of collaboration and sustainability.
• Promotion of environmental responsibility: the school implements environmentally responsible practices such as eco-friendly materials, composting, dry toilets, green roofs, water reuse systems, and the use of renewable energy.
• Promotion of entrepreneurship and social innovation: the school as a Hub for social and ecological impact projects for real learning contexts.
• Job creation: 6 new full-time jobs will be created with the expansion of the school structure, among them head and assistant teachers, and complementary functions to the operation of the school.

Vila represents the will to create a sustainable school, in Lisbon, for all education levels (up until the University level), an innovative offer that does not yet exist in the city.

A project that brings together education for a sustainable and collaborative society with the development of the several dimensions of the human being. This school stands out for:

• Have emotional education as one of its pedagogical pillars; 
• Give meaning to all learning in a real context, 
• Adjust to the characteristics and motivations of each child and each life project. 
• Have ecological sustainability and collaborative practices present in its operation and learning
• Promote education for gender equality and be inclusive

The project mirrors the interest and deepening of alternative pedagogies and the aspiration to bring together their best proposals in a complementary way with an innovative curriculum. Behind Vila is extensive research of the best practices in the 50 most innovative schools in the world and the experience of collaborative management of a Waldorf educational project for early childhood as a motor for bringing together families and part of Vila's team. 

There are also a set of local partners who have allowed Vila to grow as a community educational project integrated into an urban neighborhood, who have strengthened its multidisciplinary team, and who have provided a practical experience (from the pedagogical proposal) to the children who go to Vila. Always with the support and enthusiasm of several families that make up the pioneering community of this sustainable school.

To be a student in Vila there will be available scholarships and the possibility of exchanges between families and schools for the diversification and democratization of access.