What happens when young people take their education into their own hands? The Colearning Basecamp gives a consistent answer: a multi-year, entrepreneurial education journey for 15- to 25-year-olds – full-time, embedded in real working life, and led by the young people themselves. A third path alongside high school and apprenticeship.
Tribe, Learning Enterprises, and Village
The Basecamp translates the Colearning framework into a complete education journey:
- Tribe: The young people form a Tribe that organizes itself and carries responsibility together.
- Learning Enterprises: Instead of sitting in classrooms, they found their own Learning Enterprises – with real customers, real invoices, and real risk.
- Village: Around the tribe, a multi-generational village of mentors and accomplices contributes. All learning is made visible on a public portfolio page.
Diplomas are not abolished but reached differently: The Matura (via international A-Levels) and the EFZ remain attainable through real projects and the portfolio – without a curriculum setting the pace.
From One Campfire, Many
The first Basecamp is taking shape at the Effinger in Bern – on the same fertile ground where Colearning Bern and YOLU have already grown. But the idea has been bigger from the start: We are not building one Basecamp, we are building many.
The dream behind it: Young people everywhere in the world organize themselves. They come to an existing Basecamp, watch, live along, and get the rhythm into their bodies. Then they move on and build a new tribe with their own community – in their neighborhood, their village, their region, wherever adults do real work and are willing to let young people live alongside them. Proven templates, handbooks, and stories travel from place to place and make every next start easier. That is why the entire concept is openly published under CC BY-SA – to read, rebuild, and think further.
So the movement does not grow through an expanding headquarters, but through passing it on. And it needs us adults – not at the helm, but as enablers: as accomplices, mentors, advocates, and hosts at places with real work. An honest price and a solidarity fund ensure that money never prevents anyone from starting. Or in the words of the concept: "From one spark a campfire, and from one campfire, many."