Community Learning Exchanges
What are Community Learning Exchanges?
Learning exchanges are opportunities for people to visit groups, organisations or communities in other places, to learn from the exchange of ideas and sharing of common solutions. Exchanges create opportunities for people to share information, and learn from others with similar interests, or who face similar challenges.
Community learning exchanges are particularly useful in the rural context, where communities in different and geographically dispersed locations, face similar challenges and opportunities. Exchanges work particularly well for community and social enterprises, where there is a willingness to share learning and experiences.

Previous Learning Exchanges
Click to read more:
How is the Hub involved?
The Rural Social Enterprise Hub has an aim of furthering learning and knowledge exchange between rural social enterprises, and funded by the Scottish Community Alliance, has held several in-person and virtual exchanges. Before lockdown, several in-person community learning exchange visits took place; one to the Scottish Borders, with a focus on young people, and one to Oban and Mull, with a focus on collective leadership.
More recently, the Hub has hosted a series of Virtual Learning Exchanges, to share learning from social enterprises across rural Scotland on re-opening and adapting services. From the virtual learning exchanges, we have produced a ‘virtual tour’ and ‘case study’ for each social enterprise – to showcase the work they are doing, and challenges they have faced during Covid.
How to run a virtual learning exchange
Click to download the PDF or watch our video.


