Two Moons Erasmus Project

Project Title

Two Moons

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law)

Project Summary

Context/ background
Human rights are objective minimum standards required for all individuals to live with dignity. Despite the protection offered by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), older people continue to suffer from negative stereotypes that lead to discrimination, isolation, exclusion, even abuse. Lack of awareness among older people of their rights and a lack of understanding of the practical application of human rights among public bodies are factors in preventing and responding to breaches of human rights.

Two Moons aims to develop an education programme to enhance older people’s knowledge of their human rights and make human rights relevant to daily life and making visible to wider society where and how public bodies are failing in their obligation to protect older people’s rights. It uses an innovative methodology for knowledge transfer. The title Two Moons comes from the Indian proverb: “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins”, representing the concept of ‘voice’, in that it is only through raising the voice of those affected that understanding emerges. Hence the resources developed use stories in the words of the older person to illustrate infringement of their rights.

The objectives are:
– to develop with older people an education resource that reflects their reality
– to empower older people to assert and claim their rights through knowledge of complaints procedures.
– to design the resource for use not only by older people but also policy makers, health and social care professionals, service providers
– to promote and enhance a rights based approach to service delivery and adult safeguarding

Overall approximately 450 people participated directly in Two Moons. Older people attended seminars/ focus groups organised to share information on human rights and collect experiences, provided the stories, reviewed the IO1 booklet, did readings and reviewed the monologues for the IO2 script, participated in the facilitator’s workshop, performed the documentary theatre, attended pilot performance event and seminars to hear and feedback on IO4 audios. Policy makers, health, social care and legal professionals, advocacy organisations and educators participated in reviewing monologues, the facilitator’s workshop on hosting a performance and talkback, reviewing and feeding back on all of the outputs.

Activities undertaken for:
– IO1 Booklet included researching and learning about human rights conventions, collecting the experiences of older people where their human rights were not respected, using these experiences in a booklet to illustrate breaches to ECHR and UNCRPD, outlining possible actions such as complaints procedures that older people can take to claim their rights.
– IO2 script included in depth interviews with older people, molding these interviews into 10 minute monologues, merging monologues together to form a play.
– IO3 guide included researching on elements of production, performance and talkback, creating modules for the facilitator’s workshop on hosting the play and talkback , delivering the training, supporting performance of play, learning on webinar platforms and delivering workshops and events virtually
– IO4 included research on community radio stations, preparation of monologues for broadcast, recording the monologues, developing lesson plans for the Training workbook to accompany the audios to facilitate group learning using IO4.

These activities contributed to the development of the following outputs:
a) Booklet, ‘My Human Rights, My Well-Being’, accounts of situations where the older person’s human rights were not respected. .
b) Documentary Theatre script, ‘Our Stories: Human Rights and Older People in Europe”, recounting 6 stories that highlight human rights infringements.
c) Facilitator’s Guide to Two Moons Documentary Theatre and Talkback:
d) ‘Listen to my Story’, an audio recording of the monologues adapted for radio broadcast; an accompanying workbook to be used with audios for education purposes

Results and impact
(1) Knowledge and skills
Increased awareness and new knowledge on human rights and actions to take to claim rights among older people.
Increased awareness and new knowledge among public sector workers on their obligation under Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty to protect rights of older service users
(2) Behaviour and attitudes – recognition among public sector workers that current process for delivering and accessing services does not always respect older service users rights to self-determination, to support and protection and be treated equally
(3) Systems – action by advocacy organizations and policy-makers to address discrimination within the system in the criteria used to qualify for services working to adapt to reflect older people as rights holders.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 253529,11 Eur

Project Coordinator

Co-Creation Support Company Limited by Guarantee & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Associazione di Promozione Sociale Teatri d’Imbarco
• The Gaiety School of Acting, The National Theatre School of Ireland
• Voimaa Vanhuuteen – osk VoiVa – Empowering Old Age Coop
• ASOCIATIA HABILITAS – CENTRUL DE RESURSE SI FORMARE PROFESIONALA
• ANZIANI E NON SOLO SOCIETA COOPERATIVA SOCIALE