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PARTNERS

Ayuntamiento de Sant Mateu

The local municipality of Sant Mateu (SM) has a department aimed to provide non-formal and formal education to adults and seniors. The SM municipality is part of the North campus of the Senior Citizens‘ University (SCU), a branch of the Jaume I University (UJI) a public education institution in the city of Castellón. The SM town has 2100 citizens, but that North Delegation of the SCU-UJI includes other towns in a rural area about 10.000 citizens. The SCU has a total of 919 senior learners (more than 55 years old) which are part of theUniversity, 97 of those learners are part of the SM delegation. By this way, the local municipality is currently very active as an Adult Education Provider with the collaboration of the SCU.

The SM municipality aims a higher increased cohesion, to reduce the risk of exclusion of their senior citizens and promote an active way of living based in the lifelong learning principles. The SCU has expertise teaching seniors (ICT but also humanities, arts, history, economy, law, etc.), and creating ICT tools for seniors (as the wikisenior http://www.wikisenior.es, anthropology blogs and other virtual communities where seniors are members http://mayores.uji.es/antropologia and hiking activities) and the SM has experience in other non-formal educational activities. The North delegation of SCU in SM was created in the academic year 2004/2005, since then it has been consolidated, but new challenges has raised. The SM municipality is at the present trying to foster the use of ICT in seniors, especially those who live in risk of isolation and exclusion, in a rural area and with some disability.

The SM tries to offer learning opportunities through the use of ICT tools to maintain them social, integrated, creative and active, with all the great potentialities that the network can offer to seniors in rural area. We will participate in the providing our expertise on using ICT to empower seniors and keeping them active but also gathering knowledge about how making them more enthusiastic and motivated from different vital aspects that make them more participative and therestof society to take advantage of their potential. Some of these aspects focus on environment, cultural and intellectual, sharing and collaborating to grow up emotionally and socially,

on the net (where sometimes intergenerational communication must be considered) but also in their lives.

Voksenopplæringa i Tromsø is a provider of secondary school for adults that don’t have the exams. That might be Norwegians or migrants without their papers. Accordingly we also provide Norwegian language courses for migrants. Most of our students are migrants, age 16 and up. The main target is teaching them Norwegian so they can participate in the Norwegian society. Integration for work and social activities are our main aim like the main objective of the project.

Some of our migrants are elderly, and have bigger problems integrating in our city than the young ones. For them the language is essential for getting integrated, since the work situations for them are harder than the young people. We solve this by teaching them about the city, the possibilities they have to get in contact with other citizens of the city. Included in our education are computer skills, work with language training and contact with different organizations in the city.

We also would like to improve our target group in active aging aspect. For this reason this partnership will contribute so much that we will be able to promote active aging to the staff and learners in the organisation. By sharing the good practices we will get more methods. Our specific role is to set up the website and update it with collobaration of Poland partner. Via carrying out the shared methods in the local activities we will integrate our target addresses in social life actively.

Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna w Łodzi

The Pedagogical Academy in Lodz is a private university which provides activities within the fields of education, special education and sociology. We offer the two-level study system with bachelor and master degree in education as well as great offer for postgraduate students. The Pedagogical Academy in Lodz launched activities in the field of external cooperation and exchange (the bilateral cooperation, Erasmus, international projects: Comenius, Grundtvig, COST, Daphne III). The Pedagogical Academy in Lodz pursuits consulting and educational activities for local communities as well as people and institutions concerned. Many educational and scientific conferences and debates were organized, mainly dedicated to problems of special education needs, the risk of exclusion, peer aggression and new media etc. The staff is involved in a number of research projects both, on national and international level.

"Academy of Adulthood" is integral part of The Pedagogical Academy in Lodz and proves that ‘being active’ in life does not end with the retirement or pension. We offer lectures lead by specialists from various fields of study, seminar classes in the sections of interest and opportunity to learn new language to people who have completed 55 years of age, have free time and wish to join "Academy of Adulthood”. Our programme does not only provide opportunities to deepen or acquire new knowledge, but also gives a great chance to make new friends and develop social contacts.

The activities of our Academy in the project will aim at making and developing forms of training and development of seniors, who want to continue to develop their knowledge and interests through a variety of forms and methods of work. In addition, within the project we will carry out the tasks related to preparation and shaping mental, emotional and physical activity of participants, as well as broaden the educational activities that will arouse and motivate seniors to creative and active work. We want to create and deepen contacts with European partner organizations with similar objectives and expand the exchange of knowledge and good practice in terms of lifelong learning programme. We will try, through mobilities and dissemination of this project, to raise awareness and reinforce the values resulting from the experience of life of elderly people in Poland and the partner countries and to promote healthy and active living.

Tüm Aktif Memurlar Derneği

Our association is located in Kütahya, Turkey and it has been actively working on adult and senior education since it was established. Our target group includes the adults and seniors who have left education without basic qualifications, who are isolated from the society and who are in a disadvantage situation economically and socially.

Our aims are to contribute the personal development (educationally, socially, physically, culturally etc) of our target group and also the staff. In order to promote our target group for living active and for being more motivated to learn further we organize many educational activities in certain periods. Seminars, courses, competitions, trip, etc on different fields such as literature, second language learning, ICT, social development, cultural development, gaining basic skills, sports, arts etc amongst our activities.

Through these activities we believe our target group can not only recognize their own skills but also feel the value and gain confidence in them. By this way they are encouraged to participate in the activities, which provide their active aging. With this partnership project we would like to share good practices on active aging with different perspectives and include them to our teaching/learning methods. Thanks to the new ways, we will be able to increase the participation of adults and seniors in the activities and foster their living actively without isolated from the society. In this way we can gain lot from adults and seniors’ experiences.

In order to achieve the aims of the partnership, we, like the other entire partners, are supposed to do the tasks properly. The specific task we will fulfil is to prepare a brochure which helps the partner to announce about our partnership. We will also contribute to the project by sharing good practices, helping with the other tasks of the partners, evaluating the process and doing the arrangements when we host the partners.

Rahel Varnhagen Kolleg – Weiterbildungskolleg der Stadt Hagen

Rahel-Varnhagen-Kolleg is an Institute of Further Education located in Germany with campuses in Hagen, Gevelsberg, Hemer, Menden and Luedenscheid. Opened in 1983, it is now one of the biggest Institutes of Further Education in North Rhine-Westphalia with currently more than 1,000 students being registered. We offer a wide range of courses – including online courses – for school leavers and adults returning to education in order to graduate from school and we welcome students from a variety of backgrounds and cultures each with their own learning requirements. We always make it an effort to admit migrants to our Institute and foster the development of cross-cultural competences.

Our curricula are to a very large degree split into modules because we believe that modularization of further education gives our students greater freedom in choosing their study paths due to the requirements of lifelong learning. Classic teaching methods have been being replaced by methods of self-dependent learning.

Our courses combine a mature learning environment with a range of support services in order to make further education more accessible to disadvantaged young people and to provide a re-entry route for those in the workplace who wish to upgrade their skills in line with emerging needs and to give them a chance to combine education and graduation with family, work and other responsibilities. In this whole big thing it is important to get older with life quality. Life quality can be reached by our education and our curricula. With the contribution of the partnership we would like to improve our curricula and enlarge the perspective of the organization.

In the project the main duty of ours is to prepare the e-booklet by cooperating with the other partners responsible for this. In each meeting we will also share the good practices on the determined topics and carry out the suitable one /ones in the local activities. We will also have active role in evaluation and dissemination activities.

MEETINGS

19-20 November 2012, CastellonMeeting for coordinators

We determined:• topics of all meetings• how the visit should be organized• the aims of meetings• rules of cooperation• we will share our achievments: „success stories”, „best practices”

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27-29 May 2013, HagenLearning socially and intelectually

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Active Life LearningIntelectually and Socially

The Spanish Partner got the participants familiar with the way and didactics of teaching the elderly at university where for a few years people in the advanced age 60+ during academic classes can acquire extra qualifications which are confirmed by various certificates.

What was also presented was social activity and doing things online in order to spread the results of the activities by starting and initiating the topics on dropbox.

Learning languagesSenior Dance – an active way of staying social

The partner from Norway presented the method of teaching Norwegian to the adults in the culturally and linguistically mixed group without any common language, e.g. English. The workshop was very dynamic and made the visitors realized that learning languages is not a barrier, but only our inferiority complex and prejudice.

The concept of „Senior dance” was also presented. Senior dance has a motive: “Dance in joy – dance for life”, and goals are to give the seniors an active way of living, and having fun doing it: wellbeing and happiness, smile and laughter. Since there are lessons and courses, there is no need for pre-knowledge, and the instructors are professionals, in the way that they know how to dance and how to teach others. After more than ten years of active coursing and gatherings all over the country, the effects are starting to show. The need of public care in their home or need of moving to a home elderly can be delayed. This means better quality and huge economical savings for the society because the participants are getting healthier, stronger and perhaps most important: more social and therefore more happy?

Self-education and Mnemotechnics in Social Activation of People Over 50

The Polish partner presented mnemotechnics that are practiced with Polish seniors before their classes. Thanks to them students:• regain belief in their own capabilities,• improve their independence,• improve their self-esteem.

Mnemotechnics help seniors: • reduce the risk of depression,• get in contact with their grandchildren – even surprising them,• change from the clumsy grandmother or grandfather to the person who can surprise

with their knowledge,• get to know new people.

Academy of Advanced Age organize:• didactic activities,• cultural and recreational classes,• workshops and interest sections.

Active Life Learning

The Turkish Partner presented an activation programme of professional and voluntary activation of adults and the elderly. Films, slides and pictures let the participants get to know about Turkish mentality as well as their language and status barriers (financial and the place of living).

Wonders of perception: Illusions and phenomena in visual, auditory, tactile and social perception. An example of experience-based learning in psychology

The German partner focused on psychological aspects of learning:

• For experience based learning motivating and stimulating learning material is necessary. Learners should be free to gather their own impressions and experiences.

• This method intends that learners make their own experiences and that they learn while being active.

• This aim is so important because learning is considered as a holistic process, in which nearly all senses should be stimulated.

• In this way learners are “picked up“ at their individual level; their (everyday) life and (everyday) experiences become contents of their learning progress.

• Furthermore they improve their skills of self-reflection, which is necessary for active life learning.

• The basic idea of experience based learning is to create a strong link between theoretical and practical work.

• The highly individual experiences motivate the learners to extend their knowledge and skills.

12-14 September, KutahyaLearning emotionally and spiritually

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Evaluation toolkit on seniors’ education to improve their quality of life

The partner from Spain presented tools used for measuring the quality of life of seniors, which was related to their competence, skills and attitudes. All factors that affect the improvement of the quality of education of the elderly were pointed out and partners were asked to look (based on the provided questionnaires) at their institutions through the prism of these criteria.

FairytalesHow to make migrants proud of their language

The partner from Norway discussed the use of fairytales in the process of integration of foreigners. A method was presented where they organized the show, during which a certain story was told in the native languages of the various participants. It gave them a sense of pride of their country and their native language, as well as bridging the gap between the nations.

Emotional and spiritual development in the process of education of the elderly as a factor influencing quality of life

The Polish partner concentrated on seniors’ lives:

• The most important problems of seniors are: health changes, change of one’s social position, a sense of rejection and being redundant.

• The Academy of Advanced Age supports emotional and social development of the elderly through: creating the community of the elderly in which the senior citizens feel wanted and welcome, giving a sense of belonging to peer group, enabling sharing problems of daily life with people who understand them, enabling engagement in new activities, enabling fulfilling oneself in new roles, wise time management, deepening of perceiving the world and the human being, meeting the cognitive need, integration of life experience with new knowledge, fostering personality development by inspiring reflections on life, inspiring new interests, raising self-evaluation and self-esteem.

• According to Poles their purpose in life is in: happiness in family life (81%); satisfactory job (44%); trust of other people (39%); love (36%); peaceful life (36%); deep faith (29%).

Our love and mercy are our life motivation

The partner from Turkey came to the conclusion that the attendance of the project Active Life Learning had inspired them to increase the activation of the elderly, who are the beneficiaries of their institutions. They decided that in the near future they will focus on this social group. With reference to the subject of the meeting, they had outlined the specifics of emotional and social relationships that Turkish family members have in common and were told about the influence of religion on their everyday lives.

Get to know each other – good preactice

The partner from Germany presented a technique that helps to break the barriers that arise when meeting new people. The idea is to introduce oneself with a one-word description of oneself. It has to begin with the same letter as ones name. To make it easier to remember, we stimulated the other senses, showing a gesture that refers to the given word. Each new participant repeated the names, words and gestures that were presented. During the meeting, this technique had been practiced.

Additional visits

See: Spaniards in PolandSee: Poles in Spain

6-8 February, LodzLearning vocationally and envinronmentally

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Learning through walking

The partner from Spain reported how The University of the Third Age tours affected the intellectual development of seniors. Each expedition was associated with learning about the history and characteristics of the visited region. Depending on the location of the meeting the focus may have been on: the issues of the environment, the culture of a particular region or country, or its history. Participants of the meeting in Lodz were invited to take part in a quiz on their knowledge about Spain.

Learning language through work-training

The partner from Norway talked about the meaning of specialized vocabulary in their professional work. They presented the basic assumptions of the courses, organized in order to extend the most necessary language skills. Participants of the training organized in Norway are people who speak different languages, for whom Norwegian is a second language. The complexity of translation (of specialist vocabulary shown in the example of using online dictionaries) was undertaken by partners from Norway. It turned out that in several cases the translations were not satisfactory.

Eco-seniorEnvironmental education thanks to EU

The Polish partner presented the results of the Grundtvig I project, which was carried out in the WSP in 2012-2013 "Eco-hi" (http://www.ecohi.wsp.lodz.pl/). It concerned the dissemination of environmental education among adults.

The main assumption of the project was an increased awareness of the beneficiaries and their participation in events related to ecology. We presented the results of each partnership visit and local action.

Public services for seniors in Turkey Active life learning socially in the environment

The partner from Turkey described the situation of elderly people in society. They stressed the value of learning throughout ones entire life, not only in the formal aspect, but also social. The environment, on the other hand, is a pretext to build links between members of different organizations. The outdoor meetings not only involved the beneficiaries, but also their families, which promoted intergenerational solidarity.

The interactive worksheet in Geography lessons

The partner from Germany showed how to use Internet sources and virtual disks to create interactive lessons on climate changes. It was suggested to use online photos and maps and also dropbox as a tool.

25-26 June 2014, TromsoLearning phisically

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Learning actively physically

The Spanish partner stressed the importance of having good habits related to physical activity, which can be formed through formal, informal and non-formal education. The Spanish Institution often organizes hiking tours for their seniors, encouraging them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They also organize meetings and lectures related with proper nutrition and promoting daily exercising.

Creating interest in the environment where you live

The Norwegian partner presented the idea of organizing the mountain excursions, which are not only a great form of physical activity, but also an opportunity to get acquainted with the plants surrounding the mountains. Thanks to this the theory of evolution is explained. As a complement to the mentioned speech, the hosts offered a hike to the very well known Tromso Peak.

Physical activity of Senior Citizens preventing modern diseases

The Polish partner the issue of twenty-first century illnesses has presented, as those that contribute to the majority of the deaths of most modern developed societies. Because they bring in huge personal and material costs, there are certain actions undertaken in order to eradicate them. However, it appears that the most effective way of maintaining good health is physical activity. Therefore, the partner presented what actions are taken at the Academy of Advanced Age for activating and educating the students.

Bowling tournament

The Turkish partner described how the physical activity of adults looks like in Turkey. Their institution was trying to encourage this process by organizing outdoor events. It turns out that the majority of the Turkish seniors prefers gardening to any other active ways of spending their free time.

TAMDER has been organising many sports activities in order to make adults love sports and do it like daily activities. In 2014 they organized e.g. the bowling tournament.

Hands on Science

The German partner unveiled what actions are taken at their institutions in order to educate their beneficiaries in the field of natural sciences.

Because the best way to learn is through experience, most courses take place outdoors, such as trips to museums, parks, as well as conducting experiments and researches. All these actions are designed to increase students' interest in these fields of knowledge and increasing their activity.

PRODUCTS

Flyer

Socially and Intelectually

Emotionally and Spiritually

Environmentally and Vocationally

Phisically

Spain

Norway

Poland

Turkey

Germany

Presentations

Website

The pedagogical guide