The Power of Community Energy Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Power of Community Energy

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: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Energy and resources; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

The project “The power of community energy” is a joint initiative of 4 partners – non-governmental organizations from Poland (SIE), Turkey (TROYA), Germany (WECF) and Denmark (INFORSE). Each partners works in the fields of non-formal and informal education on subjects important for sustainable development (including climate change, environmental protection, sustainable energy, energy transformation, civil society). The partnership will develop educational content that will complement the knowledge of educators / trainers passed to the target group – local communities of rural areas, small towns or urban districts.
Numerous analyzes (official and partners’ ones) indicate that there is a need to raise knowledge about social, civic and entrepreneurship competences, as well as knowledge related to climate protection and the environment, whose condition and quality affects human health and nature. The success of energy transformation depends on the level of citizenship competence. Energy transformation, including the establishment of energy cooperatives and citizen’s energy are a response to challenges facing the current civilization.

The partners are very familiar of the needs in their countries in this regard. Each country is at a different stage of development of such projects: Denmark and Germany – countries with a high degree of social and civic competences – have been consistently building energy independence for years, including through community energy; in Poland and Turkey – countries with low degree of social and civic competences – examples of such undertakings are limited to a dozen. In every country – in the face of a changing situation – there is a need of knowledge and tools for associating local communities into cooperatives, financing local investments and creating cooperation networks not only at the local level. There is a great need for projects that will enable people to learn from other communities about stopping greenhouse gas emissions and thereby stop climate change.

Milestones of the project are international meetings (4 in total, one in the country of each partner), whose aim is to exchange experiences, learn about the most efficient practices and work on the results.
At the local level, each partner will conduct workshops in an open form using the project results in them. It is estimated that a minimum of 280 people will participate in them.
The wide range of recipients will be achieved through websites, social media, networks and participation of partners in events related to the topic of the project and through the participation of partners and links to networks operating in similar areas.
The implementation of the project is based on the principles and methods established by the partnership: systematic communication between partners, schedule, dissemination plan, monitoring, evaluation and joint problem solving by consensus.

The results of the project will be:
1. Newsletter (4 editions) prepared by the organizer of the international meeting (pdf) containing information about the meeting, photos, news
2. Information on the project and its results on all partners’ websites
3. Guides (2) “The organization of cooperation to create cooperatives, bottom-up initiatives as a response to the challenges of the 21st century”. “Comparative analysis of energy cooperatives in Eastern Europe, including Poland and Turkey”.
4. A database about best practice (online)
5. A database of local institutions, organizations and groups related to the project’s subject (online)
6. Well-established international partnership cooperation
7. Development of follow-up projects by the partners

The results of the project will be included in the partners curricula (INFORSE-Europe training for members of the organization in local commuities , SIE workshops carried out in rural areas, TROYA workshops for emerging cooperatives, WECF educational work at the national and international level). They will be used in trainings and lectures and shared with individuals and organizations cooperating with partners.
Experts, trainers and educators will take part in the project’s activities, the latter will include in their educational offers the results (guidance, databases) developed during the project. Educational activities will have the character of “lifelong learning”.

The permanent effect of the project will be increasing the knowledge of the target group on topics related to civic competences in connection with civic energy, but also increasing the level of knowledge and skills of teams of partners’ organizations and an extensive network of contacts and cooperation.
All results in English and the partners’ languages will be published on each partner’s websites and on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and available for free for interested parties.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 49800 Eur

Project Coordinator

SPOLECZNY INSTYTUT EKOLOGICZNY & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Troy Environmental Association
• WOMEN ENGAGE FOR A COMMON FUTURE EV
• INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY-EUROPE