Unity in Community Erasmus Project

Project Title

Unity in Community

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: Environment and climate change; Inclusion – equity; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

Many migrants in Europe face social and economic exclusion because of their nationality, social status and/or religion in their country of residence. Unity in Community develops new inclusive adult education methods and courses in the area of active citizenship that enable to connect the local population within a country with migrants. By doing so, Unity in Community uses the topic of sustainability as a framework to promote and enable community projects which are going to be implemented by locals and migrants from one community.

The project will be international collaboration of partners from Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. The partners from Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are involved in community projects with migrants in different areas (skill-sharing, intercultural dialogue, peer2peer learning). The partner from Austria is an environmental organisation running education programmes for community projects without including migrants so far.

Objectives of Unity in Community are
+to train adult education staff and develop appropriate methods to improve their mentoring skills for community projects
+to create a methodology that can be implemented by the project partners and picked up by further adult education institutions or NGOs, dealing with the topics of inclusion and sustainability
+to develop trainings that will qualify people to mentor and set up community projects that can be easily implemented locally all over Europe
+community projects and activities to become more inclusive and sustainable

The participants directly involved in the project process are going to be
1. adult educators of participating organisations, actively involved in local community building
2. leaders from both migrant and non-migrant background
3. adult educators outside participating organisations , social workers, NGO workers
Internally, 8 adult educators will be involved, recruiting up to 30 directly involved participants from target group 2 and 3. By testing our methodology via community projects we will reach at least 100 people in the first phase of the project. In the phase of training and dissemination we want to reach 500 people directly who will act as multipliers in order to reach at least another 10.000 people indirectly through dissemination events. Supported by our media channels, we will cover a range of at least 80.000 through the partner organisations ‘ networks.
The project will involve participants, who have great ambitions but lack the means to acquire proper training in the field and are motivated to start their own initiatives on a community level. Additionally, we use the project Unity in Community as a tool for motivating people to set up inclusive initiatives in their communities who have the potential of doing so, but have not identified the initial idea yet or lack of contacts to like-minded people.

Through the development of a mentoring methods for adult educators and trainings for multipliers, we will foster inclusive and sustainable approaches on how to work with migrants and locals on community level. In the 25 months lasting project process, the consortium will
+ set up a study in order to establish the following activities on a scientifically proven basis
+ develop a methodology for adult educators in order to qualify them for mentoring sustainable community projects (target groups 1 and 3)
+ design and conduct a capacity building training for qualifying people to conduct community projects on their own (target group 2)
+ create a handbook and a video tutorial in order to make our results public and guarentuee open access
+ implement 4 multiplier events in each participating country in order to disseminate the results to a maximum degree

Unity in Community will obtain the following results:
+adult education organisations dealing with community projects will be able to establish structured mentoring methods and capacity trainings within their adult educational programmes
+having a mentoring method established in order to support community projects in a structured way, being distributed via a handbook and a video tutorial
+adult education organisations being able to offer professionally developed capacity trainings to people interested in their community work
+enhance community projects connected to the organisations’ goals
The participating organisations will profit from professional development of the partner organisations’ adult educators staff in mentoring inclusive and sustainable community projects. The participants will be enabled to implement sustainable and inclusive projects themselves or deepen their experiences in the field and become inclusive leaders.

As a long-term effect, migrants and non-migrants are getting better integrated in communities by profiting from adult education methods developed by the project. Sustainable projects will empower people to become active citizens and create diverse societies they want.

Project Website

https://mareena.sk/en/unity-in-community

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 159632,49 Eur

Project Coordinator

MAREENA & Country: SK

Project Partners

• Kalunba Szociális Szolgáltató Nonprofit Kft
• GLOBAL 2000 UMWELTSCHUTZORGANISATION
• BE INTERNATIONAL