Lebensqualität durch Nähe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Lebensqualität durch Nähe

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Rural development and urbanisation; Regional dimension and cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Today, communities are under enormous pressure to fulfil their duties and to enliven democracy through active civic involvement. In many municipalities, citizens are perceived as very demanding. There is, however, a lack of appropriate instruments, help and training to actively involve these citizens in community life. Quality of life is usually described by infrastructure measures, but it is personal experience that allows people to really feel it. “Quality of life through proximity” starts exactly at this point, where people can feel the quality of life through cooperation, participation, civic commitment, helping people to help themselves and close cooperation of as many people as possible in the communities.
The objectives of the project were to provide community leaders with instruments and support for involving citizens. Through training (information) and awareness-raising, the prerequisites were to be created for citizens to organize themselves in the communities. Thus, citizens should be enabled to improve their quality of life in a self-responsible and tangible way through projects, models and activities. In addition, process facilitators for communities should be trained and curricula should be developed for training community facilitators and players in the communities.
A total of six partner organisations worked together in the project, all of which are active in adult education and have access to community work. The lead partner SPES Zukunftsakademie Austria has a focus on community and family work in addition to general adult education. SPES e.V. Germany contributes experience in the field of community support. The partner K-Punkt from Germany concentrates on organizing conferences on topics of communal coexistence. The adult education centres Schloss Goldrain and Kloster Neustift from South Tyrol want to put clear emphasis on civic education, in addition to their current work in adult education. The European umbrella organisation EAEA contributes above all their experience in the area of networking and dissemination of project results.
In order to be able to implement the LQN program in communities, twelve PBs were initially trained on this program, and a training curriculum was developed and implemented for this purpose. In model communities, core teams (citizens and leaders) were trained to pick up and implement issues of ownership, self-organization of civic engagement, and culture of relationship in their community. A separate curriculum was also developed for this purpose. Best-practice models were researched throughout Europe and prepared for community reconstruction. Ideas and visions for the implementation of LQN in the own community were developed. The resulting working groups were trained within the framework of the Erasmus + project and accompanied during implementation.
Parallel to this development approach, a competence check was prepared for committed citizens: using an online tool, citizens should be able to define their competences acquired through extracurricular measures. In this way, the volunteers should be aware of the value of this experience and be made transportable for their professional life.
An awareness-raising package for LQN was artistically created to accompany the training activities and made available to the communities.
A total of twelve PBPs were trained in the project and are now able to implement LQN processes in the three participating countries. In addition, 80 persons responsible for the community were trained and 34 projects implemented, which are available as competence providers in their communities over the long term. A total of 1,600 people were reached through the LQN events, the AK’s and project activities.
A total of 9 development processes were accompanied in 7 municipalities, in which 34 projects were realized.
Impact: In addition to the project period, trained PBs are available for other municipalities. Through their education, they have comprehensive know-how on citizen participation and the activation of citizenship potential. In the communities themselves, there are numerous volunteers who continue to work in AK’s after completing the subsidized LQN process phase. Many started projects have a long-term impact and continue to develop their ideas.
Especially the participation of citizens creates motivation to get involved in the democratic parish structures. This culture of participation reveals the value of democracy and counteracts the political disenchantment of citizens. The recognition of self-efficacy and concrete opportunities to get involved creates a good foundation for volunteering in your own area.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 367858 Eur

Project Coordinator

SPES GMBH & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Bildungshaus Schloss Goldrain
• EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE EDUCATION OF ADULTS
• Bildungshaus Kloster Neustift
• Spes e.V.
• K-Punkt Ländliche Entwicklung im Kloster Heiligkreuztal