Highlights

EGL at European Conference „Old People with Migration Background in Europe - Challenges and Chances"

Our project was presented by BEST at the first European Conference "Ältere Menschen mit Zuwanderungsgeschichte in Europa - von Herausforderungen zu Chancen", from September 30th to October 2008 in Bonn, Germany

This big event (around 150 European Stakeholders) was organised by the German Ministry for Generations, Family, Women and Integration of Nordrhein-Westfalen

  

EGL Demonstration Event in Kristianstad, Sweden

Our project European Generation Link was presented at the Swedish "Culture Day 2008" which aims at increasing solidarity and fellowship among citizens from different countries. Altogether 400 people participated at this event, representing various organisations and companies. Many visitors showed enormous interest in the concept of EGL.

EGL Information and Implementation Workshop in Napoli Another workshop on EGL was organised by Citta della Scienza in Napoli on September 25th. The project guidelines and the EGL library were shown and explained to trainers, teachers and consultants from various educational organisations, regional job agencies and training agencies from all over the Campania Region. Different ways of implementation and deployment in Italy were discussed in detail.

  

French Press Article on European Generation Link

In an interview with the local weekly journal "la Vie Quercynoise", three young learners from Cahors (Southern France) were talking about their experiences with the "European Generation Link" Project. They reported on how they could benefit from their activities in discovering the path of life of an old teacher, writer and artist: "By telling about his life, he also taught me about myself and about our history", one of the young learners stated.

  

Making intercultural and intergenerational learning more popular in Hungary

The project European Generation Link has recently been presented on two occasions in Hungary. On June 26, 2008, we organized an event for youth workers in order to explore the possibilities of using the European Generation Link Library within the context of working with young adults and incorporating it into the non-formal education. The library was presented and participants had the chance to browse through many of the stories. 
In September, we had the opportunity to explore the ways the library could be used in the formal educational context. Participants of our second dissemination event included school teachers dealing with migrant learners. From their perspective, the project could be used to establish and strengthen connections between migrant and non-migrant populations. All in all, on both occasions the merits and potential uses of the library have been particularly pointed out.

EGL demonstration at the "Festival of Cultures"

On July 6th 2008, in the framework of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, a big cultural festival took place at the Volkshochschule (adult education centre) in Cham, Germany. The aim of the event was to emphasise the unique advantage which the great diversity of cultures and languages in Europe represents, to encourage all Europeans to explore the benefits of our rich cultural and language heritage and to make use of opportunities to learn from different cultural traditions. As one of the highlights, the EGL products (guidelines and library platform) were presented and demonstrated.

Among numerous participants, there were representatives of local authorities, educational institutions, schools, public organisations and stakeholders. Everyone was invited to use the library platform and the interest in our project was overwhelming.

  

 

We believe that the success of this EGL festival demonstrates the feasibility of our products to stimulate interest in intergenerational learning and raise awareness of the importance and benefits of intercultural dialogue.

 

EGL Demonstration Events at  "Campania Sociale" in Italy

In the framework of "Campania Sociale 2008", Città della Scienza organized action events that attracted more than 1.000 persons. Our project was demonstrated to representatives of public institutions, policy makers, teachers, trainers and social operators from the Campania region, who met up and discussed new social and educational methodologies and resources.

"European Generation Link" at Austrian Universities

Our project was presented at two different Austrian universities, the Johannes Kepler University of Linz and the University of Applied Sciences St.Pölten, in June 2008. Students dealt with the EGL concept and approach in the framework of language teaching and studying. Participants of the university workgroup at Linz came from several different European countries.

 

EGL-Presentation at the Open Symposium
"Inter-generational Learning in Europe: Partnerships, Policies and Good Practice"
at the University of Graz (May 30th-31st 2008)

 

The focus of this open symposium was on discussing current approaches, experiences and good practice in inter-generational learning in Europe. The programme offered a mix of keynote presentations and hands-on workshops, including the planning of concrete further action.
Symposion, EGL Poster

  

In Romania, one dissemination event of the project European Generation Link took place on the 14th of May 2008, within the organization AIESEC Oradea.

AIESEC is the largest youth organization in the world, present in 100 countries and territories. It is the international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential, in order to have a positive impact in the society.

The dissemination event took place in AIESEC Oradea, and it was a relevant and interesting activity for the members of the organization in their learning process. The 24 members that participated in this dissemination event, received relevant materials concerning the project - leaflet and visited the website of the project where they could find out more details. The inter-ethnic relations and the migration reasons, context and conditions, were subjects that presented a real interest for the participants.

Between June 2nd and 3rd, staff of Carpathian Foundation FDCE Romania organised site visits and local meetings with partners from Baia Mare and Sighetu Marmatiei. During these set of actions, a number of 15 persons, from different sectors and organisations, received informations about EGL project, the leaflet in Romanian language as well as informations regarding the demonstrations events that will take place in their region by the end of July. A special interest was paid by the participants from Valea Verde Association, a group of young and enthousiastic volunteers, that were inspired by the project objectives and achievements and commited to continue searching for stories and update the library with characters and life experiences from their region. The project was more relevant for them taking into account that many young people from Maramures are are now living the country to work abroad and face difficulties in adjusting and integrating in a new society.

European Generation Link in Slovenia

In the framework of our European Generation Link project, Zavod Papilot organised meetings for experts from various institutions which work in the field of social assistance and training. Two of our events took place on 30th of May and 1st of June 2008.

We presented aims, outputs and new solutions provided by the EGL project and motivated our participants to explore new ways in intergenerational and intercultural learning.

 

Making an interview is hard and funny at the same time 

On May 18 th KTP organized an EGL workshop for young journalists within a project called „Media Creatively - How to create a school magazine" which is dedicated to young people who are interested media work. Thirty five students from six grammar school redactions from different parts of Czech Republic took part at a weekend seminar. On Saturday during the EGL workshop all participants learned how to make a good interview. How to choose people, what to prepare in advance, how to ask open questiones and how to structure the writen text. Afterwords they were introduced to the aims of the EGL project, the functioning of it's library and learned on how to upload individual stories.

After this workshop each team got the task to find an older person living in their surroundings, who wasn`t born in Czech Republic but in other European country and to make an interesting interview including pictures, in order to try out all journalistic skills picked up during this workshop. The stories will be collected, evaluated and uploaded in the beginning of September.

"Evropské příběhy" - European stories in the Old Townhall of Brno, Czech Republic

On May 28, the Czech partner KTP organised a Seminar with the title „Evropské příběhy" (European Stories)  where the products and the possibilities of the "European Generation Link" project were demonstrated to head and history teachers and experts from adult education institututions for migration and sociology research from all over the Czech Republic. After the presentation of the project activities participants saw a short film with an example story of a Russian artist Boris Kjulleněn who worked as restorer in the Ermitage of Petrohrad and who now lives in the Czech Republic. Promoters demonstrated how to upload stories onto the European Generation Library, two further stories were made by the participants and will be uploaded during next few weeks. The participants received the Czech versions of the EGL products. "Our aim was to present all the options of the EGL Library which allows to create a wonderful creative story composed of text, pictures but also of audio and video files" said the project manager for Czech Republic Beata Hola.

At the end of the seminar, further demonstrations of this project were discussed and three presentation events for grammar schools in Carlsbad, Prague and Vizovice have been arranged for the beginning of September. "I decided to include EGL Library as a part of the history education in my classes in Carlsbad. We already have a project, which consists of similar aims, students are supposed to find out details about their grandparents. Most of them have a migration background. Now we will create interesting stories which will be uploaded onto EGL Library", said Marie Vranova, history teacher from Carlsbad.     

EGL Demonstration Event at Symposium in Nürnberg/Germany

Our project European Generation Link was presented and demonstrated in the framework of the media pedagogical symposium "Medien bilden - aber wie?" on April 11th and 12th 2008 in Nürnberg.  The event was carried out on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and was organised by the media competence centre Parabol, Nürnberg and JFF - Institute for media pedagogy, Munich. The EGL project and EGL library were shown and explained to trainers, teachers and representatives of pedagogic and media competence centres from all over Germany. Different ways of implementation and deployment of our project, as well as possible future forms of cooperation, were discussed in detail.

      

Project demonstration at "Expodidactica 2008", Barcelona A principios de abril, el Gabinet d'Estudis Socials participó en "Expodidactica 2008", una feria que atrajo a unas 8.000 personas: profesores, instituciones públicas y actores sociales tuvieron la posibilidad de descubrir nuevas maneras y nuevos recursos para el aprendizaje. Durante estos días dimos visibilidad a los resultados del "European Generation Link" entre la red educativa de Cataluña así como a los numerosos representantes de instituciones educativas y agentes sociales. Además, distribuimos trípticos y recogimos un listado de personas interesadas en recibir informaciones detalladas sobre cómo promover el aprendizaje intergeneracional empezando desde la comprensión del bagaje histórico y de la ciudadanía europea.

EGL Demonstration Event at Folkuniversitetet Kristianstad/Sweden

The Project European Generation Link was presented and demonstrated in a seminarian on March 14th in Kristianstad. The EGL project and EGL library were shown and explained to trainers, teachers and managers from four Folkuniversitets offices.

  

EGL Demonstration Event in Vienna/Austria

On March 1st 2008 our project European Generation Link was presented in the framework of a charity event in "Szene Wien", Vienna, Austria. The event was organised by musik austria and „Augustin", a well known magazine raising issues of migration and being homeless.

Demonstrating the project's aims and outcomes created lively interest of many of visitors. In this way information about our project reached a broad audience - for further information: http://www.musik-austria.at/, http://www.huach-zua.eu/.

  

On 26th of February, 2008, the Latvian EGL Demonstration Event took place with members from adult education centers, different local authorities and education establishments participating.

The director of Latvian Adult Education Association Ingrida Mikiško gave and insight into the various project lines that support life long learning among whole society. She also pointed out that year 2008 is the celebration of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. In order to give more clear insight into the importance of this project one of the involved persons in this project - interviewee Aija P. was also taking part in this meeting. She told about her memories, doubts and benefits regarding this project.

Aija P. admitted that this is really a good tool to use in order to keep the cultural and social heritage of our history. She encouraged other experienced people to participate actively in developing the interactive Library of the project. This is clear that the idea of the project in Latvian context takes deeper sense, because of the historical background and hurting memories of those, who had to flee the county in order to survive during the World War II. In the end of the meeting all participants agreed that the project "European Generation Link" has a very important role in keeping the history alive. The Library could be used in schools and other education institutions in order to tell younger people about significant experience of Latvian people outside their country.