European Life and work – Participation Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Life and work – Participation

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Based on the realization that there are very few inclusive offers in the European context of adult education, or that the few available offers are not sufficiently communicated and therefore can’t reach the target group, we have set ourselves the goal of changing this.

The project consortium was made up of educational institutions acting as providers of continuing education services in the field of adult education and having a great interest in opening up their offerings to the target group, and of the Jugendaufbauwerk Plön-Koppelsberg, Lebenshilfewerk and Wien Work, which acted as support for measures for people with disabilities.

It was about the connection of disabled and non-disabled life worlds as well as the integration into contemporary and sustainable inclusive offers of adult education.

This has enabled us to build a European network for inclusive and participatory adult education and, in addition, to identify other European partners who, as a result, will be able to develop and test further inclusive and participatory services in European Adult Education.

Due to internal, structural changes in the project partner Bildungshaus Kloster Neustift (Italy – South Tyrol), about half of the project duration, there were changes in the strategic partnership required. The Bildungshaus Kloster Neustift left the contract. In coordination with the National Agency it was possible to win over and integrate a new project partner from Romania with the Begegnungs- und Kulturzentrum Friedrich Teutsch.

Overall, and over the entire project period were involved more than 40 players in the exchange of experiences in good practice through including adult education and the development of innovative products of inclusive, participatory adult education. These were pedagogical experts as well as disabled and non-disabled adult education teachers as experts in their own right.

In addition, external experts have been involved in the project work repeatedly in order to make the connection of disabled and non-disabled environments at the conceptual level inclusive, participatory and barrier-free.

In the frame of meetings and conferences with the respective partners, which were organized in the form of workshops and working groups, it was possible to work out the possible thematic approaches for inclusive training modules, in which the respective regional and cultural particularities as well as the structure of the respective providers / educational institutions could be identified and considered. The detailed requirements, in terms of content, didactics, as well as the infrastructure and the organizational framework conditions were defined here.

As one result, it has succeeded in conceptually designing, offering and implementing an inclusive education program. As a specification, a curriculum was developed in which the schedule for a week including training program is described in an exemplary manner.

Entitled “Look across the Box”, the adult education course on “Health and Nutrition” was held at the Bildungshaus Schloss Retzhof in Nals in Styria. Care was taken to ensure that not only the group of participants consisted of both disabled and non-disabled men and women. The speakers and presenters led the seminar series by as disabled / not disabled tandem on the team.

The evaluation and impact measurement has produced very positive results. Participants have found the inclusive participatory approach to be extremely beneficial. Inhibition thresholds were reduced not only among the participants, but also among the speakers and presenters.

Based on the curriculum, the educational institutions will further reinforce their integrative approach, taking this into account in their infrastructural planning and in the content of their didactic development of the offer.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 61550 Eur

Project Coordinator

Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Norddeutschland, Jugendaufbauwerk Koppelsberg & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Consistoriul Superior al Bisericii Evanghelice C.A. din Romania, departamentul Centrul de dialog si cultura Friedrich Teutsch al Bisericii Evanghelice C.A. din Romania
• Bildungshaus Kloster Neustift
• akademie am see. Koppelsberg
• Lebenshilfewerk Kreis Plön gGmbH
• Firma Wien Work Integrative Betriebe und AusbildungsgmbH
• Bildungshaus Retzhof GmbH