An Ethics Subject That Goes Beyond the Classroom
At CIAS Formazione Professionale, a vocational training school founded over 45 years ago in Como and specialising in personal care, there is a subject that sets it apart from most institutions of its kind: ethics. What makes it distinctive is not only the content, but the method. Rather than being confined to classroom hours, ethics at CIAS is lived, practised, and experienced in the real world — most notably through participation in the annual “L’Isola Che C’è” Fair of Solidarity Economies.
Held every September since 2004 in the Municipal Park of Villa Guardia, near Como, the fair brings together over 150 entities and around 300 volunteers to showcase experiences of sustainable economy, fair trade, short supply chains, circular economy, and solidarity. Since 2021, the event has been organised in accordance with the ISO 20121 standard for sustainable event management — a significant marker of its ambition and rigour.
Students as Volunteers, Not Just Visitors
What makes the CIAS participation distinctive is that students do not attend the fair as passive visitors: they are an active part of it. Third-year students in hairstyling and aesthetics — approximately 16 to 17 years old — are involved as full volunteers, working in shifts across the two days of the event. Their roles are identical to those of all other volunteers: welcoming visitors at the entrances, managing ticketing, assisting with logistics, serving at tables, clearing up, and handling recycling collection.
Each year, between 90 and 100 young people take part, divided into groups of about 25. This scale ensures that the experience remains manageable and meaningful, with each group having sufficient time to absorb what surrounds them. A dedicated educator accompanies the students and follows up with a classroom debrief once the fair is over, connecting the live experience to the broader curriculum.
What Young People Encounter
The fair is a microcosm of the solidarity economy: exhibitors from the world of volunteering and sustainable business, workshops, conferences, concerts, and an ethical food court. As students work alongside other volunteers and interact with representatives of different organisations, they encounter realities they would likely never have discovered on their own — cooperatives working on agro-ecology, fair trade businesses, reuse projects, and social enterprises committed to environmental sustainability.
Success and Obstacles
The practice has been running continuously since 2016, and after nearly a decade of experience, it runs smoothly. The main challenge, the organisers acknowledge, is motivating students to participate: an activity held over a weekend is easy to dismiss as “school stuff” — and anything associated with school can trigger a predictable refusal. Yet those who do participate consistently report positive experiences, and the feedback from students has remained encouraging year after year.
Relevance for Sustainable Learning
This good practice illustrates how non-formal learning can be embedded within a vocational training pathway in a way that is authentic, community-rooted, and transformative. Students leave the fair not just with new information, but with broader horizons, new contacts, and a lived understanding of what a solidarity economy looks like in practice. It connects to SDGs including SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
Website: ciasformazione.com | fieralisolachece.org
Contact: Silvia Calabrese – calabrese@ciasformazione.com
