Here we are! It was time for the partners of the European Adult Education project Senior Plus to meet again. After the launch in Rome in November 2015, all the managers of the 6 organisations involved met again from 6th to 7th June 2016, in France, at Pistes Solidaires’ headquarter. A very intensive meeting, focused on revising the most important preparatory products for the project. The consortium of organisations had indeed planned from the project design to create some very important pillars guiding all the work to be done in the next 15 months:
The EUROPEAN RESEARCH on the competences of the over 50 and adult education policies describes Adult Education Programmes already existing in the Senior Plus countries and identifies the basic and cross competences which inactive seniors are meant to have access to. During the monitoring meeting, managers analysed the content of the first version presented by View fro here ltd and, on the base of it, identified some intersting aspects that can be further developed and further investigated. All partners accepted to get some extra tasks for the next month, in order to get through some additional investigation that can increase the quality and usefullness of the research. At the end of the summer 2016 the document will be published and disseminated opening the recruitment phase for the local trainining courses.
The GUIDE for VOLUNTARY WORK is another product that will support trainers/advisors on one hand and volunteers on the other hand when it will be the time for practicing the re-discovered or depeened competences during the training phase. During the meeting in Pau was possible to have a look to the draft version of the Guide and therefore we identified the need to add some concrete and true success stories coming from previous projects involving seniors, in order to let the reader understand better why volunteering (at local level and abroad) can be an extraordinary ACCELERATOR of competences, which is its potential impact on our life perspectives.
The 2 documents mentioned above will be surely subject of the discussion of some of the sessions foreseen during the TRAINING for TRAINERS course, that will be realised from 7th to 12th of July 2016 in Cantalupo in Sabina (in the region of Rome). 2 Senior Plus Advisors from each country will pass together 5 days, testing on themselves the activities and the content of the TRAINING for TRAINERS FORMAT that has been elaborated for the project Senior Plus. Their personal experience, their background and ideas will be integrated in the format, helping to produce a TOOLKIT. It will ensure the quality and the flexibility that the training courses for seniors are expected to have in the different countries.
While S+ Advisors will meet in Cantalupo this week, next monitoring meeting will be hosted in November 2016 by Associaçao Mais Cidadania in Portugal, so, até breve!
Senior Plus Staff Italy
Rome, 4th of July 2016