OUR MISSION
The vision of a dream
In 2014, four dreamers (Monica, Melania, Samuel, Angelica and Genny), with different experiences and professional skills, met, united by a common passion for Processwork and the desire to bring this innovative approach to Italy in the service of LIFE and change. They dreamed of creating a school that could grow with its students and collaborators to become:
- An original point of reference in the field of process-oriented facilitation in Italy.
- A participatory training project that is part of the international circuit of Process Work (IAPOP).
- The hub of a wider network that would share underground with other schools both the spirit, the deep roots, and the high standards of Process Work in the world.
- An ethical business model according to the principles of deep democracy.
Laying the foundations of this common dream and opening the first Processwork school in Italy was the natural consequence of this meeting.
The Dream in Action
In March 2015, after five experienced European teachers joined the project, the Deep Democracy Tour started in four important Italian cities: Rome, Florence, Milan and Turin. The tour was designed and supervised by the organisational team and presented and facilitated by Ana Rhodes Castro, one of the teachers of the school. Result: in November 2015 the School of Arte del Processo and Deep Democracy opened its doors with 46 students enrolled in the foundation year!
Today!
Today we have become an IAPOP authorised training centre for the International Diploma in Processwork, we offer a three-year training for Facilitators and Counsellors in “process oriented facilitation of Conflict work” and seminars open to all interested parties, as well as online events and other initiatives in the area.
Our students come from all over Italy and Europe.
The unique thing about the Italian Processwork school is that it was founded by students who are passionate about Processwork, instead of teachers already graduated in this discipline.
Like everything vital, this project and all of the people involved in it are in a continuous evolutionary ferment. Challenges of all kinds are the order of the day; students, teachers and teams learn to appreciate and “process” them, growing through the challenges as they arise.
The mission of the School
We live in a particularly challenging and delicate historical moment. We feel today more than ever the urgency to embody and protect those ethical and democratic values and universal human rights enshrined in our Italian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, two of the most enlightening and evolved achievements of our time, at least on paper. However, they must be fully implemented in our inner world and in the reality that surrounds us, which are a reflection of ourselves and each other.
We feel the need to give voice to an innovative, and at the same time ancient, approach that allows us to follow with confidence the profound nature of our experiences, even those that are problematic and conflictual, convinced that they contain the seeds of their own solutions.
We promote Processwork and Process-Oriented Facilitation as valuable tools of awareness with which we can support both individuals and groups. Its innovative paradigm can be an accompaniment and inspiration for all those who wish to contribute to the creation of a society and culture based on a deeper democracy, inside and outside of us.
As a school of Awareness and Deep Democracy all its members are encouraged to:
- Facilitate themselves, others and the world around us by using the spirit and tools of Processwork to realise the potential inherent in each person, group, event and human experience.
- Integrate and further enrich the knowledge and skills already acquired.
- Actively participate (as organisers, teachers, students and collaborators) so that the school community is the primary ground for experimentation with the principles, values, techniques and attitudes learnt.
- Take responsibility for working on oneself to contact one’s own essence, support the other, and to foster the model of awareness based on the attitude of deep democracy.
- Develop the awareness necessary for the ethical use of one’s power, both internally and in relationships, in community projects, in the environment, and in the world.
- Support a formative space in which creativity, trust, valuing of the individual, relationships, differences, respect and solidarity, are the basis for a deeper democracy.
- Explore the conflict in safety, appropriately facilitated, so that it can reveal its evolutionary potential.
- Stimulate the ability of analytical and critical thinking through the lens of Processwork, which is both courageous and compassionate.
- Become familiar with altered states that emerge by relating to one’s own and others’ boundaries and train oneself to “meta-communicate” while remaining lucid and centred.
- Create a network of support and collaboration with other trainings, projects and initiatives that resonate with our mission.