Vision, Not Sight
The Open Secret of Successful Community Building


Imagine standing on the edge of a valley, surrounded by towering trees that rustle in the gentle breeze. You close your eyes, take a deep breath and feel the cool air fill your lungs. Suddenly, you realise that despite the darkness behind your eyelids, you can make sense of everything around you with crystal clarity. The soft wavy hills, the scent of the spring, the songs of the birds, all vividly detailed in your mind. This realisation hits you like a lightning bolt: you don't need eyes to see, you need vision.
This same principle applies to building successful communities. Despite having good intentions, many community projects fail to thrive: people don't come, they don't stay, or they don't find a way to participate. It's like trying to plant a garden without understanding the soil, the sun, and the water the plants need. To truly flourish, a community needs a clear and shared vision, a structure that supports the community's intention, and individuals who are willing to grow and change, put their values in practice.
This was the focus of our training in March 2023 in Zaježová, Slovakia. Using the Community Learning Incubator Programme for Sustainability (CLIPS) framework, we embarked on a journey of experiential learning and hands-on practice. Guided by skilled facilitators Manja Vrenko and Genny Carraro, our circle of 31 participants from 13 different countries had a taste of the strength of spirit of the community of our own, a sense of belonging and meaning.
Seeing the willingness of the participants to grow and chance was humbling. Welcoming emotions, beliefs, habits and attitudes was important, but equally important was to work with them, when they didn't serve us. This may give birth to loving acceptance, empowerment and personal fulfilment, and these were clearly present and a result of our training.
To keep the training organised and positive, many details were put in place. These included a bell to call everyone together, hand signs to indicate the need for silence or to request to speak, and dedicated groups for cleaning and energising the group with short, playful tasks. Daily work was based on hands-on practice and experiential learning instead of mere theorising. Together, these elements created a supportive structure that enabled intense learning while maintaining a playful attitude.
Building a successful community requires a clear vision and purpose, a willingness to learn and adapt, and a supportive structure that allows everyone to contribute and thrive. By cultivating a learner's attitude in us and balancing deep sharing with joyful activities, our diverse time-limited community of the training was able to flourish and grow like a lush forest, with each individual contributing to the beauty and resilience of the whole.
Project was funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Union.
Onda Vaahtera & Mikko Valtonen
Participants from Finland