Training and Learning for Community Development

Training and Learning for CommunityDevelopmentFinal ReportPublic Part

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Project information

Project acronym:

TLCD

Project title:

Training and Learning for Community Development

Project number:

135744-NL-KA4MP2007-2206

Sub-programme or KA:

KA4

Project website:

www.cebsd.org

Reporting period:From

1/11/2007

To

31/10/2009

Report version:

Final

Date of preparation:

23

rd

July 2009 first draft prepared in consultation andcirculated to partners on 31

st

July final draft circulatedto partners for final comment on 9

th

September 2009.Final version circulated 16

th

October 2009.

Beneficiary organisation:

Stichting Combined European Bureau for SocialDevelopment

Project coordinator:

Margo Gorman

Project coordinator organisation:

Combined European Bureau for Social Development

Project coordinator telephone number:

+353749723129

Project coordinator email address:

Co-ordinator@cebsd.orgThis project has been funded with support from the European Commission.This report reflects the views only of the TLCD partnership, and the Commission cannot beheld responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

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Training and Learning for Community Development

Executive Summary

The European-funded project on Training and Learning for Community Developmentis run by Consortium of 16 partners from non-Governmental organisations under theleadership of the Combined European Bureau for Social Development. The Consortium of 16partners working on Training and Learning for Community Development met as a group inNovember 2007 in The Hague (NL), in Palermo in November 2008 and at the Sofia Seminar in May 2009. Partners have a strong commitment to working in partnership on Training andLearning for Community Development in order to apply the results and outcomes of past andcurrent Grundtvig Programme actions to the field training and learning. A photo on the boat“Europé” taken at joint event on European dialogue became a symbol of horizontalnetworking with a view of Europe as the sum of the places where people live their everydaylives. It was then combined with the Catalonian Castellers, which symbolised a human tower of European Citizens reaching vertically towards the structures of European institutions. Inthe Sofia Seminar on Dissemination, the presentations on Citizens’ Participation Week andthe Council of Europe’s European Local Democracy week demonstrated the actions relatingto these symbols. The triangle of exchange between citizens, professionals and policy-makers at all levels was identified in the project as a key activity to promote participation inLife Long Learning.Learning was shared with other more locally based training projects such as

theProject “Curriculum for Adult Education in Rural Areas in Romania CAERA”. 225352-CP-1-2005-1-RO-GRUNDTVIG-G1. The evaluation was carried out by Guenther Lorenz fromTech-net, Berlin which is lead partner in another project (www.cest-transfer.de), where theobjective is to transfer a successfully tested curriculum for the social economy, including itscommunity development component, in a way that multipliers individually can apply, assessand monitor. Synergies were also sought with Eastern Europe through the Central andEastern Citizens’ Network. Whilst the project itself was limited to the European Union,dissemination had a wider scope through connections with the Council of Europe and NGOnetworks such as the International Association for Community Development.During this process partners have revisited the application of core principles of Community Development (as described in the Guidelines for Training and Learning for Community Development produced in the Grundtvig 4 project 2006) to training and learningsystems. The Consortium seeks means of establishing continuous open networking in a fielddominated by short term funding measures. It had its origins in a previous partnership in2006, which identified the triangle of exchange between citizens, professionals and policy-makers as a key activity to promote participation in Life Long Learning.The work programme started in November 2007 with a planning meeting of theConsortium in the Netherlands. This led to a series of experimental relay visits wherepartners carried analysis of Training and Learning in Community Development from Belgiumto Hungary; from Hungary to the United Kingdom; from the United Kingdom to Slovakia; andfrom Slovakia to Germany. The relay visits included field visits and were backed up byelectronic networking. The involvement of local professionals from Local Authorities, non-governmental organisations, and educational organisations enriched the level of exchangeand learning from practice. At the Laboratory in Sweden in October 2008, partners distilledlessons from relay visits to make the process of networkingAt the Seminar in Sofia, the CEGA Foundation, assisted by a Seminar team,created a working context where peer learning was set in the context of the principles of equality and intercultural exchange. 51 participants from 24 countries and 39 organisationsexplored methods of interactive dissemination where methods and techniques for training areadjusted to the context and to the participants, whilst maintaining adherence to the higheststandards of practice in training and learning. Using the OPERA method, participants setpriorities for dissemination and sustainable exchange based around identifying 150 activemultipliers.

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