Sustainable Planning Education as Intercultural Service Learning

This article presents an overview of a community development service learning programme operating in the Greek Ionian Island community of Farsa Village. The philosophical approach of the Kefalonia Program is one of ‘threading the past with the future’. It seeks to combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies in order to create a sustainable future for a community that was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1953. The village provides a case study for collaboration, research and community education for students, teachers, researchers, nonprofit organisations, island governments and, in particular, the local Farsan Village community. As a catalyst, the programme has engaged the local community in an active planning process, which both reawakens the dream of village restoration and provides a common vision for the future.