SWINg Bauhaus.

Mobilize the civil society in front of the New European Recovery Plan and under the New Bauhaus Paradigm. Create a vibrant talented community of citizens and professionals that will face the major depopulation of the region and will activate it bottom-up through sustainable and inclusive projects with aesthetic sensitivity.

• WHAT > South Western Iberian New Bauhaus. A cross-country ecosystem to empower a depopulated region to create a new sustainable future.
• WHY > Mobilise the civil society in front of the New European Recovery Plan and under the New Bauhaus Paradigm. Create a vibrant talented community of citizens and professionals that will face the major depopulation of the region and will activate it bottom-up through sustainable and inclusive projects with aesthetic sensitivity.
• WHO > Swing Bauhaus Association. An alliance of 4 organizations that is leading the civil network to work together started this legal figure aiming for 100 organizations (at least) in the region to join the movement.
• WHERE > Extremadura, Seville and Portugal
• HOW > The cultural transformation that we envision needs a proactive mindset that we empower through simple social bottom-up creative practices that will arise in the consolidation of the full ecosystem. To work collaboratively incorporating new technologies will shape our urban and rural environments. > Creative Network infrastructure: We are building a platform to collaborate between the civic and professional organizations and companies to tackle the complex challenges of society in this context of radical uncertainty. It’s a digital and social platform that works both in the cloud and in the different locations where the community is displayed. We envision becoming a sharing knowledge platform to elaborate the uncertain future. We will gather entrepreneurial and innovative community hands-on projects with a sustainable approach. > Learning programs focused on social entrepreneurship and innovation will consolidate the rural global ecosystem to create a greater impact in other European countries. Youth engagement is a major issue in the region right now so our ability to integrate them into the professional environment that will design the future solutions for the territory will be crucial. These programs are our methods to train and facilitate the construction of new creative spaces for society. The Learning Programs are based on basic pillars: learning by doing, team entrepreneurship and learning journeys and inspired by the original Bauhaus curriculum. We propose intergenerational and multidisciplinary programs that can foster social innovation and create a proactive ecosystem that can thrive with local solutions. We have already started different prototypes: HackExtrem, Circular Fabs, Radical Learning Labs, LEINN New Bauhaus and Transborder Ecosystem, and other identified bottom-up initiatives that can foster public and private collaboration. > Visibility of the different initiatives of the region to promote their activities and communities. We will be promoting the connection of the agents so we can broaden the challenges, socialize them and own them proactively. The Swing Bauhaus will be a space for celebration of the collective impact and achievements. > Funding resources need to be visible and reachable. The effort of the Swing Bauhaus will focus on communicating the opportunities to the public and private agents, matching the initiatives and supporting their financial requirements. > Research is a crucial focus of what we are doing to assure the learnings, the replicability and scalability of the collective project. The association´s impact we generate will sometimes be intangible. We have to measure our results and communicate them to society for the life and continuity of the initiative. We have a long term goal that needs to be built on real facts. We have built a partnership with MIT D-LAB to use their theory on strengthening ecosystems in our region, Extremadura, Seville, and Portugal. Elizabeth Hoffecker is guiding us to use her Ecosystem model to articulate the projects, community and ecosystem. The following immediate need is to map the agents, resources and context of innovation in Extremadura and Portugal.