Mother Nature – strengthening professional capacity to support mothers in personal transformation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mother Nature – strengthening professional capacity to support mothers in personal transformation

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: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Mother Nature – strengthening professional capacity to support mothers in personal transformation

Mother Nature aimed to equip professionals with adult learning tools and skills to support and empower mothers in developing, recognising and validating skills acquired through the informal learning experience of becoming mothers in order to foster employability, socio-educational and professional development.

Our concrete objectives were:
1. to develop and test adult learning resources (website and online forum, training curriculum, workbook and visual aid) with a minimum of 30 participants (mothers and professional educators) and reaching a minimum of 6800 wider audience through various means of communication;
2. to improve professional competences and skills of up to 415 professionals working with mothers
3. to develop and disseminate a “Peer-to-peer mother learning group” model with mothers and test it with a minimum of 50 mothers
4. to engage up to 10 mothers in the 5 partner countries in opportunities to organise and lead peer to peer groups in their communities (involving 3 of disadvantaged target group: single mothers);
5. to consolidate and disseminate the project’s best practices in the 5 partner countries and to professionals throughout the EU with freely available online resources.

Concrete results:
– We designed and set up a website and online forum to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practices in non-formal learning programmes for mothers (mothernatureproject.org). The website reached 7230 views by the end of February, 2020, reaching 144% of our target. Our online forum (https://mother-nature.mn.co) with 196 members by the end of February, 2020, reaching 130% of our target.
– We developed and published the Mother’s Journey training curriculum and Mother Nature guidebook, by the end of February extracts were downloaded 392 times, reaching 156% of our target
– We developed a FB page for dissemination of the results of the project, reaching 678 followers by the end of February, reaching 271% of our target
– We created a pilot training and piloted our methodology with 15 participants, mothers, including 3 single mothers during our pilot training course in July, 2018, reaching 100% of our target
– We trained 23 professionals supporting mothers based on our methodology, in March, 2019, reaching 153% os our target
– We developed a network of facilitators providing the Mother’s Journey course across Europe, piloting our learning curriculum as the Mother’s Journey Course with 100 mothers by the end of February, 2020, reaching 250% of our target
– We created within our Guidebook a chapter for supporting work of individuals in peer-to-peer mother learning groups.
– We created a visual aid consisting a deck of 42 cards and a user’s guidebook, to support learning on the topic that has been used, tested and promoted during the project.
– We disseminated the project results through multiplier events in different countries with 170 participants in total.

As project management and decision making mthodology we used Sociocracy which is a system of governance and organisational structure.
As design tool we used permaculture which is a powerful design method for integrative sustainable systems. We will adopt permaculture principles & strategies for running our project. To develop our learning resources we used art- and nature-based learning methods, learning based on mindfulness, group sharing, deep listening and creative design.

Impact at local level:
* 22 mothers and 22 professionals participating in 2 international courses have strengthened their capacities to organise and lead courses and peer-to-peer groups of mothers
* 100 mothers participating in the 18 local led Mother’s Journey test courses have been through a process strengthening their consciousness of their role as mothers, and they have recognized and strengthen the soft skills developed through motherhood.
* Professionals working with mothers are able to implement the tools learned during the training course (C2) in their daily work with mothers and families.

Impact at international level:
* Through our Online forum we have involved 260 mothers and professionals working with mothers. Extracts of O2 and O3 are available on the platform.
* Mothers and professionals working with mothers that are using Mother Nature’s tools can share their experiences, ask for peer-to-peer consultancy, share experiences. A network of professionals and mothers leading peer groups is developing on the online forum, which will be available after th eend of the project and group leaders in Europe.

Impact at European and international level:
* increased international networking of facilitators of mother circles after September, 2019 when we organised our European Launch of Mother Nature tools
* increased cooperation and exchange of information through our website, online forum, FB pages and the international courses we organised

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 160346 Eur

Project Coordinator

Pandora Association & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Paradiso Ritrovato
• Pécsi Szín-Tér Egyesület
• Camino e.V.
• PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION (BRITAIN)LBG
• Casa del Cuculo Società Cooperativa
• Preplet – ekolosko, socialno in kulturno drustvo za ustvarjalno skupnost