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Project title |
TRAINING AND LEARNING FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT | |
| Description: | The consortium on Training and Learning for Community Development was designed to maximize training material related to civic skills for the professional development of trainers, on the basis of intensive, coordinated networking. The consortium addressed specifically the existing gaps in training and learning, so as to meet the needs of those working within communities to support capacity building and empowerment. The initiative for developing this project belonged to the Combined European Bureau for Social Development – CEBSD (www.cebsd.org).
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| Location: | Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria | |
| Duration: |
October 2007 – December 2009
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| Goal: | To deepen and extend knowledge on training and learning in community development through intensive exchange among countries across Europe | |
| Beneficiairies: | | |
Activities: |
- 2 management meetings of the consortium – one organized in Hague - The Netherlands and another one organized in Palermo – Italy, with participation of all project partners. The role of these meetings was to establish co-operation between partners of the consortium, discuss and have a shared understanding of project methodology, plan each step of the project, monitor and discuss project progress towards project objectives. - An original system of 5 relay visits aiming to promote transfer of learning and accumulate lessons from this transfer, through experience sharing among all consortium members; each relay visit was hosted by one partner in: Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, UK and Germany, with active participation from national organizations in these countries. Host partners, together with relay visits’ participants, planned and chose one theme, topic or guidance note from the Budapest Seminar report or from other Grundtvig projects or networks and explored lessons of European significance based on local application. Transferable lessons for good practice were identified within the reports. PACT participated in the relay visit hosted by Community Development Foundation (CDF) in London - UK in March 2008. - A ‘laboratory’ organized in Malmo – Sweden (October 2008), for which the partners prepared through the 5 relay visits; this was a meeting of all consortium partners, within a “laboratory” setting created to test out whether and how training and learning for community development can create multipliers in the public, policy-making and professional arenas. Some core points from guidance training and learning for community development were tested for transferability and sustainability in this setting. This meeting also evaluated progress on the objectives of the project and its relevance to the objectives and priorities of the Life Long Learning Program on one hand and the partners and their associates on the other. - Final seminar for dissemination organized in Sofia – Bulgaria (May 18th-21st, 2009), with extended participation of key multipliers. The Sofia Seminar aimed to apply the practices and processes of interactive learning to dissemination. Participants attended work sessions to identify the means of maintaining momentum and organization of networking, to increase accessibility and transparency between local, regional, national and European levels with regard to training and learning for community development. The seminar was also meant to link the training and learning needs of non-governmental organizations and staff of local and national government who work to support opportunities for community-based training and learning for community development. A marketplace was organized for participants to have the space and means to present themselves creatively; PACT presented itself with 2 staff members and 2 community development experts and practitioners in Romania; together, the Romanian team managed to elaborate a visual and interactive presentation of the community development field in Romania.
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| Project results: | - The 16 organizations participating in the project gained a better understanding of the role of training and learning in community development as part of a life long process - A network of organizations active in the field of community development preoccupied to further develop training as a core method of their approach - The 5 exchange visits led to improving participant organizations’ capacity in understanding and using core themes and principles related to training and learning in community development - The themes and topics of the final dissemination seminar were the product of previous work on this theme by partners and their networks - The summary of guidelines and the material from the relay visits and laboratory reflected a level of consensus, which partners sought to test in the process of dissemination - The Sofia Seminar itself was an interactive learning opportunity; this meant that all participants had an active role and their expertise and the context that they operate in was reflected during the seminar and in follow-up - Participants in final seminar worked together to identify priority themes, subjected them to debate and linked them to joint action plans: develop shared tools for learning (exchange and use existing tools through the multipliers network and their websites; develop connections between centers of learning); maintain communication (use the blog and other interactive, electronic means; use e-mail groups actively; tell other multipliers what we are doing locally or nationally); values, principles and standards (do a local or national workshop on the values, principles and standards shared by participants in the TLCD project; develop peer exchanges and share the results; keep up peer pressure; work towards adaptable European standards, but avoid standardization!); fundraising, structure and organization (work with existing networks under the leadership of partner organizations, CEBSD and CEECN to identify potential funds and set up structures to support networking; get funds for a 2010 event) - A dissemination document (elaborated in view of the Sofia event) that reflects the outline of the common message of the Consortium for Training and Learning for Community Development consisting in 16 European partners - A booklet on TLCD elaborated by project partners in view of dissemination during the final event, containing key issues related to training and learning in community development as developed throughout the project - All project materials (booklet, reports, dissemination documents, photos, videos, results of the final seminar etc.) are available on the project blog (http://tl4cd.wordpress.com/blog-tlcd/), which has been constantly up-dated | |
| Donors: |
European Commission, DG Education and Culture through the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007 – 2013 | |
| Contact person: | Magdalena Tancau and Ruxandra Sasu
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| Project documents: | TLCDconsortiumcontacts.doc | |
| Guidelinesfor TLCD.doc | ||
| DisseminationDocument.pdf | ||
| Brochure.pdf | ||
| List_of_partners&multipliers_151.pdf | ||
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