Youth, nature and community at the heart of Navdanya International’s Terrae Vivae programme, where experiential learning becomes a tool for ecological and social regeneration. The pilot projects are based in northern Lazio, in the area around Lake Bracciano.
A walk in the woods
“It’s the first time I’ve ever taken a walk in the woods and it was wonderful: I had no idea the soil was alive! We should learn to respect nature and its cycles, giving up part of our profit to build a better Earth to live on.”
These are the words of an ordinary fifteen-year-old student which, within the Terrae Vivae programme, take on a very precise meaning: experiential learning can be the key to developing a deep understanding of nature and society, fostering community regeneration processes based on the interdependence between human beings and the environment.
Terrae Vivae is a programme promoted by Navdanya International, the organisation founded by Vandana Shiva, created to support the transition from extractive models to regenerative systems based on resilience, local knowledge and interconnection. Education represents the first building block of a broader pathway that supports awareness-raising, active participation and the development of practical skills, with the aim of strengthening community resilience by reconnecting people with their territories.
The pilot projects began more than two years ago in the area around Lake Bracciano, in northern Lazio, and immediately received recognition and support. The programme offers local high schools and agricultural institutes an ecoliteracy pathway, Ecoculturae, which places direct experience at the heart of community regeneration.
Navdanya International’s director, Ruchi Shroff, highlights why it is crucial to engage young people: “Helping students understand that learning does not only happen in the classroom is the first step towards recognising the emotional, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability. This became clear from the initial survey: about 80% of respondents had never heard the word agroecology, and almost none knew what the main crop in their area was.”
Is that really surprising? Teenagers go to school every day with their eyes glued to their smartphones and, once back home, they dive straight into a computer or the TV.
“That’s why the first activities in the course focus on movement and observation,” Shroff explains. “Simply walking and paying attention to the landscape becomes a radical act, because it gives young people a chance to unplug from the virtual world and reconnect with reality. It is the first step towards critical thinking, which is then strengthened with tools for analysis and understanding.”
Learning with all the senses
The forest is beautiful, the forest is alive. For many young people, visiting a woodland or agroecological area is a completely new experience. “Being outside and touching nature made learning real: I could see it and understand it with my own eyes,” a student tells us, introducing another important aspect of Terrae Vivae’s experiential pathway.
If the walk in the woods opens up a new way of learning, showing that the Earth is not inert matter but a living organism, engaging all the senses takes students even further along this path. “Students feel immersed in the educational experience,” the director explains. “They listen to sounds, perceive scents, observe shapes and colours, and feel the life that surrounds them. Touching the living matter of nature restores a forgotten bond with the Earth and reminds us that we are part of it, not antagonists. The next step is to understand how humans can live in harmony with it, protecting and valuing it. Educators have the task of facilitating this process of reconnection, which unfolds in a fluid and natural way, each person at their own pace.”
The activities are designed to gently guide students into discovering nature and learning from it. “By analysing water samples,” Shroff explains, “students explore the health of local water resources. When they build birdhouses and beehives, they begin to understand how every living being matters. Workshops on wild herbs show that nothing in nature is superfluous: some plants keep pests away, others become food, oils or remedies. What once looked like anonymous green turns out to be a mosaic full of nuance and agricultural history. Naming plants and understanding their role also changes the way students see the places they move through every day.
In outdoor art workshops, students work with natural materials: branches, dry leaves, mud, and turn them into creative tools. “I had never realised there were so many plants around us, or that each of them had a story,” one participant recalls. “Collecting and drawing them changed the way I look at the world. The activities, games and workshops helped me understand things I would never have learned just from reading.”
Alongside the workshops, students also experience everyday farm work. They watch, learn and, in some cases, take part directly in the activities of partner agroecological farms. “The students are excited to discover their local area and to meet the people who work every day in harmony with local ecosystems,” explains Eva Rizzo, teacher and PCTO (Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation) coordinator at the Vian Scientific High School in Bracciano.
On farms such as Le Bricchiette and Orto di Clapi, they learn about sowing and harvesting cycles directly from farmers. In agricultural dairies such as Faraoni and Gentili, they help make cheese and begin to understand why animal welfare matters. “After this experience,” says one student, “I think biodiversity also means cooperation between people and nature, a relationship of mutual support.”
According to Ruchi Shroff, the programme shows that “learning is far more effective when participants are actively involved. When students take part directly, their motivation and commitment grow, and they are able to connect with what they are studying at a much deeper level. The mix of observation, discussion and creativity turns knowledge into something concrete and memorable.”
Deconstructing the plate, regenerating nature
Touch, smell, listen. Taste. One of the biggest obstacles is the habit of eating highly processed, pre-packaged food that is low in nutrients and high in additives. Breaking free from the dominance of standardised junk food, and discovering healthy, tasty alternatives produced locally, is one of the programme’s key challenges.
It is during snacks and lunches on the farms that students get to enjoy fresh, real food: food becomes a living story that links ecosystems, communities and individual choices. Local food production gains visibility and value, while organic agriculture steps out of its anonymous supermarket niche and into a central role in protecting the health of people and the planet.
Building on the experience of Navdanya’s Earth University in India, connecting the local and the global is seen as a core element of these educational programmes. As the organisation’s president, Vandana Shiva, explains: “Our programmes are rooted in a specific place, but they are designed to offer a model that can be replicated in other regions, countries and continents. Across the world, control over our food and distribution systems is being steadily consolidated.”
This connection helps us understand why it is so important to multiply initiatives of this kind. On the organisation’s website, which contributes to the FAO Committee on World Food Security (CFS), we read: “In response to the dynamics of globalisation and the decline of local economies, Terrae Vivae promotes the democratisation of food, giving communities and producers back their decision-making power and autonomy. Here, producing food means sharing, building solidarity and taking care. It is an open and adaptable model, created to support transitions towards regenerative communities all over the world.”
“Local economies are being overwhelmed by globalisation, and biodiversity is systematically sacrificed to monocultures and industrial livestock farming. These processes scar landscapes, pollute soil and water, and produce food that is low in nutrients and contaminated with pesticides and herbicides. The environmental and social impacts are profound. But the challenge is not only to repair what has been damaged; it is to open up new pathways so that communities, cultures and ecosystems can thrive together. Regenerative communities are living ecosystems in which people and nature co-create new ways of coexisting. This is a long-term transformation in which growing, eating, learning and buying local food become acts of care, collaboration and shared responsibility.”
The Biodiversity Festival
The educational pathway culminates in the Biodiversity Festival, usually held in a farmers’ market where students meet local producers in a space of social and cultural exchange. The most recent edition was held at the Articulturae market in Manziana, where farmers and artisans were able to talk with students and their families, sharing their stories.
The aim of the organisers is to celebrate collective work with the community, strengthen ties between producers and families, put young people at the centre and build an ever stronger and more vibrant network of relationships. The event features workshops, seed exchanges, intergenerational dialogues, collective reflections and games. “It is a day dedicated to life in harmony with Mother Earth,” says Pina Tessitore, vice-principal of the Paciolo Art High School in Anguillara Sabazia, “and a moment of deep sharing, because it also involves students’ families.”
Beyond learning, towards a responsible future
For many students, Terrae Vivae has been the first real opportunity to engage with the environment around them. These moments of discovery show how important it is to create spaces where young people can reconnect with nature and think about their role within wider ecological systems.
Direct contact with the landscape sparks wonder, curiosity and openness, including on a social level. For many young people with disabilities or learning difficulties, outdoor activities have been a real source of wellbeing. “I was looking for an inclusive programme for students with disabilities,” Eva tells us, “and I’m happy because they had many chances to socialise, working alongside others on key issues such as agroecology, climate change, short food chains and healthy eating.”
The first monitoring reports published by the organisation show that participation is steadily growing: in the last two years, hundreds of students have launched their own ecological awareness-raising initiatives. Drawings by students from the art high school have been exhibited in local shows, and some have become part of the programme’s official visual communication. The short film “Scelte che nutrono” (“Choices that nourish”), created by the students themselves, was selected and screened at the Bracciano International Film Festival, and the whole experience inspired a graphic novel by Milan-based illustrator Federico Zenoni.
“I’ve seen our students change as well,” Eva adds. “The work they have produced speaks for itself. This is the right way to really engage the new generations.” The programme will continue in the coming years with the creation of school gardens and the extension of activities to teachers and other professional groups.
“Terrae Vivae,” concludes Ruchi Shroff, “is not just an educational pathway: it weaves connections between people, communities and ecosystems. Active participation turns this journey into a collective, living experience. Through their direct relationship with the land, young people become protagonists of change in their communities and develop a deep sense of responsibility towards nature.”
Manlio Masucci, Navdanya International
This article was originally published in Italian in the magazine Terra Nuova, December 2025.