Literacy for freedom: universal accessibility in cultural sites for permanent education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Literacy for freedom: universal accessibility in cultural sites for permanent education

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

Regarding the access to cultural and heritage resources and sites, this is the current situation:
* museums and other cultural sites have an important attendance gap. People with a high socio- economical and educational level are the majority of their public while those in disadvantage or with difficulties of inclusion (such as disabled people, migrants, elderly, people with low qualifications…) don’t even consider cultural sites and heritage as a real valuable alternative in formal, non-formal and informal education; not even as a leisure resource.
* access to so—called high culture of all citizenship is vital to guarantee inclusion, cohesion, sense of purpose, social participation and, in general, quatily of democracy in all the different countries as well as the European project.
* adult education, vocational and second opportunity centres have a great proportion of this target groups among their students. They need resources not only in literacy but also resources in terms of socio-cultural inclusion, active citizenship and, of course, digital competence which implies an added gap in itself.
* the mentioned lifelong learning centres do not have a stable cooperation scheme and set methodology with museums, cultural and heritage sites of their community and scarcely make use of on-line resources such as virtual visits or projects such as Google Arts&Culture, among many others.
* technological development allows to foster cooperation processes and the creation of resources for all (universal accessibility and design) catering for diversity in an easy and useful way.
* cooperative european projects such us Erasmus+ allows design, development and testing of work flows that meet those detected necessities.
* in 2021 Europe will celebrate a Jacobean Year, a special celebrations of the Way of St. James, the first European Cultural Itinerary declared in 1987 in recognition to its contribution to the shared culture and values of Europe. No European citizen should be left behind of this event and it is a fantastic opportunity for field tests.
* Design Thinking has shown itself as a powerful tool to develop and implement by means of multidisciplinary approaches, resources of value in mixed fields.
Thus this project is aimed to:
* a strategic association in innovation that works towards the full and inclusive participation of groups at risk of exclusion by means of technological, on-line and universal accessibility resources, taking advantage of shared work with adult education centres to provide resources for this teachers and pupils to consider cultural and heritage resources a valuable means of inclusion and active social participation. We will also work closely with relevant user groups in the different phases of the work (design, testing, etc).
All this will result in 4 intellectual outputs:
* Accessible Info App for Museums (AIAM)- A web app meant to provide accessible information for all.
* Best practices and improvement areas Report: on Cultural and heritage sites as adult education resources.
* Design, proof of concept and, if possible, full development of tech products resulting from the former report, as well as their user’s guides.
* Report on methodologies, procedures and resources in cultural-adult education cooperation.
As well as the intellectual outputs a capacity building 3-day course will take place:
* Cognitive and communicative accessibility in cultural sites course – for cultural workers and adult teachers together, although mainly for the former as the latter are expected to have better competences on that area.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 167180 Eur

Project Coordinator

CONSELLERIA DE CULTURA, EDUCACION E UNIVERSIDADE (XUNTA DE GALICIA) & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Þekkingarsetur á Blönduósi
• UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO
• WARSZTATY KULTURY W LUBLINIE
• ASSOCIACAO EMPRESARIAL DE PORTUGAL