BELONGING
Belonging.life is a transformational education project.
EduCaring ignited in Italy in 2004, focused on renewing the Calling, body, hearts, and attitudes of teachers.
In 2005, TeamPlay Ground was implemented—a classroom management protocol that entrusts learners aged 3–10 with the social dimension of their learning environment. This project quickly reveals why unity is only possible because of diversity, and how to bring harmony into reality.
In November 2024, we were invited to bring Belonging to Pretoria, South Africa. Weeks into the planning, the geopolitical crisis brought this remarkable project to a screeching halt.
Education determines the future and must not be treated as a political football.
CORNERSTONE
Roots, Relationships, Readiness
What happens when students are trusted with real responsibility—not for grades, but for relationships?
In 2006, thirty-three students in Stuttgart, Germany, were given an unusual assignment: instead of learning about their country's role in World War II through textbooks, they would spend a semester building relationships with survivors—listening to stories kept silent for sixty years.
Working in self-selected teams, each with a distinct role in a living system, students conducted deep, personal interviews they called "InnerViews". They learned to ask questions without seeking blame, to listen without judgement, and to honour the wisdom carried by those who had survived unimaginable loss.
Then they turned toward the ever-pending present we call the future.
In plenary dialogues, the entire class worked together to answer a single question: How can our generation ensure this never happens again?
Their individual papers became a collective book. Their classroom became a model for what education could be. At graduation, speaking as one voice, they asked a question that still echoes:
"Why wasn't our entire education like this?"
Cornerstone reframes learning as Co=Operation rather than competition, and positions students not as passive recipients of information but as active participants in a living system. Through self-selected roles, intergenerational dialogue, and collective responsibility, students discover that the quality of their lives depends on the quality of their decisions—and that decisions shape every relationship.
Cornerstone is adaptable to any subject, any age group, any cultural context. What it requires is a willingness to trust that unity emerges naturally when diversity is honoured.