Development of Cultural and Heritage Tourism Skills within Rural Communities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Development of Cultural and Heritage Tourism Skills within Rural Communities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Rural development and urbanisation; Regional dimension and cooperation

Project Summary

<< Background >>

The project idea came from the nature of the partner organisations, operating in the rural areas and working with the rural communities: farmers, craftspeople, local business people, and other local inhabitants. All of them live their daily rural life which is full of local culture heritage: local crafts, traditions, folkmusic, local food, country life style, nature, local architectre and other simple but interesting things. Some of the partners had members who provided tourism services, such as acommodation, local food products, trainings on food production and crafts, study visits and other which attract the tourists and raise the awareness on the villages and rural culture heritage. The partners raised the need to strentghen the local communities’ skills in increasing the visibility of the rural areas in the social media and modern communication channels to promote the rural culture heritage for tourism purposes. As the most effective and popular way of promotion in the social meda are short video clips, the partners identified that their adult members lack of skills in producing the video by smart phones and publication them in the social media, Facebook and Youtube. The project was prepared to fill this gap.

<< Objectives >>

The overall aim of the project was to improve the rural adults’ competencies in provision of the cultural and heritage tourism services in the partner countries.

The objectives were threefold:
– development of the training tool-kit for adults training, based on the hands-on learning method;
– improvement of the adult educators skills in teaching adults on cultural and heritage tourism,
– improvement and extending of the adult learning opportunities on cultural and heritage tourism.

There two target groups:
– adult educators,
– adult learners.

The project was aiming to develop the training tookitl for the adults wishing to make videos with the smartphones in promoting the rural cultural heritage. Also, the tool was dedicated for the adult trainers, who would be able to integrate the training toolkit into various training courses related with the local cultural heritage, such as production of local food, farming praciticies, production of crafts, etc.

<< Implementation >>

PARTNERS MEETINGS.
The in-person and online transnational meetings were organised for project management and partners’ communication. The online meetings
replaced the in-person meetings and were very evffecitve in partners’ communication and project management.

INTELECTUAL OUTPUT
The toolkit was developed according to the mtethodolgy prepared by the partners.The toolkit is composed of the methodology, the description of the best practice cases on rural heritage in partner countries, the videos on the best practice cases produced by the partnerss, the tips the training material for making the videos.

TRAININGS
The in-person and online short-term staff trainings were organised for the both target groups to discuss the project subject (rural heritage through videos) and to pilot the project output (a toolkit on video production).

DISSEMINATION
The multiplying events, including the international forum, were organised to disseminate the information on the project and its results and to discuss the project subject (rural heritage for tourism purpose) with the local communities.
The posts and articles in the social media and web pages were produced to disseminate information on the project.

<< Results >>

PARTNERS MEETINGS
– 2 transnational in-person partner meetings were organised in Norway and Lithuania (2 transnational meetings in Denmark and Iceland were cancelled due to the Covid-19 travel restrictions).
– 15 online meetings were organised through zoom platform every 2 months. Online meetings replaced the in-person meetings and were very evffecitve in partners’ communication and project management.

INTELECTUAL OUTPUT
– methodology of toolkit development was developed
– 30 best practice cases (5/partner) on rural heritage were identified (texts)
– 12 videos (2/partner) on the cultural heritage best practice were produced (videos) + 12 produced as additional results
– 1 training tool-kit was developed, including tips for production of videos (text and video)

TRAININGS
– 2 short-term staff trainings on piloting project output were organised in Croatia and France and 24 (4 per partner) adult educators and learners were trained on cultural and heritage tourism and application tool-kit to the trainings. + 3 participants were trained as additional result
– 2 online workshops were organised and 15 participants were trained as the additional results

DISSEMINATION EVENTS
– 3 multiplying events were organised in Iceland, Norway and Denmark for 40 participants each
– 1 international forum was organised in Lithuania for 40 participants

Project Website

https://vivasol.lt/LEARN-THE-LIFE-projektas/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118700 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociacija “Viva Sol” & Country: LT

Project Partners

• Hanen Viken
• LANDBUNADARHASKOLI ISLANDS
• MFR Enclave des Papes
• Lystbaekforeningen
• Ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih Dante