The Synergia Transition and Resilience Climate Action Program (STARCAP), is a three-year community-based education and animation project. The objective of STARCAP is to help community organizations undertake or strengthen long-term climate action in their communities in ways that advance community capacity, resilience, and climate justice.
Each year, three to five Canadian organizations associated with the Canadian Community Economic Development Network participate as Community Partners. Members of these Community Partner organizations enroll in a 16-week MOOC developed by the Synergia Institute, called “Toward Co-operative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century,” that is also open to registrants from across the world. The Community Partners form study circles to discuss what they are learning from the MOOC, learn with and from others also involved in similar concerns, and address how issues and strategies raised within the MOOC might be applied in their own contexts. After the course is complete, the Community Partners build on their study circle learning by convening one or more action groups to undertake climate action that aligns with their organizations' goals and capacities. Over the duration of the project, evaluations by MOOC participants, Community Partners and others involved in STARCAP help to improve the group learning experiences and the MOOC's curriculum, design, and delivery.
The STARCAP project is funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada and supported by three managing partner organizations:
- Synergia Cooperative Institute, represented by Dr. Mike Gismondi and Michael Lewis
- The Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet), represented by Mike Toye
- Athabasca University, represented by Dr. Lorelei Hanson
| Public files |
| 2022 MOOC informational materials Towards-Cooperative-Commonwealth-2022-brochure.pdf |
| 2022 MOOC informational materials Towards-Cooperative-Commonwealth-2022-info.pdf |
System change and transition to a political economy that is both socially just and environmentally sustainable are now the central concern of social movements the world over.
Climate change has added an unprecedented layer of complexity to social change work. To meet this challenge, transition to a just and sustainable future requires a perspective that is more integral, more holistic and more demanding of co-operation than anything we have seen since the rise of industrialization. This is the starting point for the transition work we envisage at Synergia, and that is embodied in the content of this MOOC.
