Grundtvig Partnership Project

Fostering Cooperation and Intergenerational Learning

Kick-Off Meeting, Cyprus, 9^th - 10^th of October 2012

Minutes

Present:

KIVOTOS ELPIDA, CY (Host): Iphigenia Pavlou, Leonidas Erakleaous

Colegiul Tehnic, RO: Maria Salai, Elena Blujdea

OPONGA, EL: Anastasios Amanatidis, Pericles...

E-Juniors, FR: Mark Konick, Sabine Riou

Excused:

CECE, ES

8^th of October 2012 – Arrivals

9^th October 2012

· I. Welcoming and Introductions; each partner to introduce its organization.

Kivotos Elpida (Ark of Hope): Volunteers organisation (the members have their own job and volunteer in this organisation during evenings, afternoons, week-ends) created 3 years ago. The objective is to work with young people and help them to deal with family, social problems. They work in groups thus people can interact more easily. They expanded their efforts to other groups of the population (immigrants, women, single mothers, elder people). Try to target those in need, try to work on local problems, help them to help themselves.

Elder people: the aim is to make them active in the society in order that they feel useful, to create a learning environment for young people: senior citizens teaching younger people (they did that in a former project), they are like mentors, and in return young people can help the seniors in using ICTs.

The ark tries to realise everything in a fun way.

How do you do that with your organisation? Let’s share our best practices.

Oponga: The 2 participants are retired.

Information about the place where the organisation is located: Their town is called Kilkis: 30,000 people located north of Thessaloniki. Town built around a hill a thousand years ago. There we can find Saint George Church at the top of a hill and a well-known museum (Hellenistic, classic and roman periods). Known for its caves with stalactites, stalagmites, also bones of extinct animals were found in the area.

Information about the organisation: Volunteer activities mostly from private initiatives to engage youth in social, cultural and sports activities to combat delinquency, violence, etc. The aim is to prevent youth from engaging in negative behaviour. The city council created an organisation for this and helps the members financially to support the activities led by the organisation. The participants of their organisation are perfectly suited for this project.

For instance, they propose art classes (some are free and for others, a small fee is required) in order to get kids off the street and get them to do something fun and productive. Football is also an activity on offer, along with a local tournament.

Parents also enjoy seeing and participating in the activities; it eventually evolved into an intergenerational leisure-time activity.

They also organise religious events and festivities involving both young and old.

e-Juniors/e-Seniors: larger group called e-Seniors (sister association), created about 7 years ago (e-Juniors, few years after that) to teach computer skills to seniors to bring them back into active society, create a link between older and younger people. Example of a project: Café des Ages. Have also been involved in other Grundtvig projects (TandemsGo, HEuritage) which revolved around intergenerational learning and activities (young teaching old how to use computers, intergenerational games and sharing of seniors’ memories).

Philosophy: personalised approach to teaching ICT skills.

Our association has several employees and volunteers (most of them IT people).

(more information in the flyers).

Depending on income level, learners pay different prices for the courses, but it’s less than what is usually charged.

Kivotos Elpida: “the interesting thing is to understand what could be the best teaching method when a young person teaches a senior about ICTs. And vice versa.”

Colegiul Tehnic: town close to the Serbian border (around 70-80,000 inhabitants), surrounded by mountains and lakes.

The organisation is a Technical School. They do not have much experience inre to intergenerational activities. They are not doing anything with the elderly. They want to start common activities integrating teachers and students.

Kivotos Elpida: “If you are here, it means that you have an idea about what you want to do and the others partners can bring their experience in order to help to create and organise your new intergenerational activity.”

Example of Kivotos project: Seniors Volunteering (Grundtvig), the idea is the exchange: someone from Kivotos goes to another organisation in Greece and volunteers there for 3 weeks and vice versa.

· II. Review of the agenda / Discuss our expectations for the process and impact of the project

The host organisation is responsible for meeting minutes which will be sent to the other partners 2-3 weeks after each meeting.

Ø Communication within the consortium

Good communication is required. One person should be responsible for all communication matters. Communication will be done by email.

A few rules are necessary:

- responding to all partners inre to meetings, etc. -- not only to the host

- having 2/3 people from each organisation in the mailing list

- replying to email within 2-3 days maximum

- having (cell-)phone numbers available, in case problems with email, in case of emergency, we have another way of communicating

Proposal: “Google Group” in case problem with email (back-up system for common email), Skype for video conference (Skype contacts to be exchanged).

Distinction between common issues and individual issues -- not compulsory to address the email to everyone.

A document will be sent by the CY asking for names, permission for phone numbers, skype contacts, email addresses of the staff participating in the project.

Dropbox can be used to store all documents or to create a private platform on the blog/website where the documents will be submitted (deliverables, flyers, newsletters, photos, etc.).

Ø Project website and blog creation:

FR is responsible for the creation and editing of a blog and website containing a description of the project along with project logos. A draft is to be produced by the end of Nov. 2012 and a final version by mid-Dec. 2012.

Wordpress as a tool for the creation of a website to which our national agencies can have access to documents and results (public access to deliverables, document uploading/downloading)?

FR has already given thought to the creation of a website with blog included. The blog must contain links to each country’s website and each country’s website must link to blog.

See “Women Understanding Women”: http://womenunderstandingwomen.wordpress.com/ for use as a model?

All partners will contribute to website and blog, links to partners’ organisations will be given with a small presentation and vice versa links to the consortium website will be present on partners’ websites, along with a small presentation of the project (one form of dissemination). Information on each transnational meeting: participants, place and date, activities. These data are to be uploaded onto the website by partners which FR is responsible for editing.

Ø Dissemination Activities

Each partner is responsible for local dissemination activities (for ex., producing and distributing project flyers, submitting newspaper articles, producing radio and TV broadcasts) and for sharing these results with others by uploading them onto the consortium website.

In addition, there is to be a common project newsletter requiring the contribution of all partners, to be edited by the Greek partner. At least twice, ideally three times, over the course of the project, partners are to send information in English (about a half-page, in an informal, easy-to-read format, along with some pictures, for ex.) to the Greek partner summarizing recent local activities and progress related to intergenerational events and learning, etc. which they would like to disseminate. As an example, we can refer to the newsletter of Kivotos in the project “Women understanding Women”. The first newsletter should be produced by mid-Feb. 2013.

Ø Logo:

Ø

Note: Project logo is to be created before producing a final version of the website and any other dissemination material. Its production is to be a joint effort. It should symbolise intergenerationality, perhaps combined in some manner with partner countrys’ flags or just the European flag. CY is to send a hand-drawing of such a logo to all other partners for their comments by the end of Nov. 2012.

Ø III. Transnational Meetings

Ø Learners: Anyone from our organisation other than staff or else someone from our local community who perhaps doesn’t have the opportunity to travel a lot.

Ideally, France should bring mainly seniors to the meetings as most of the other organisations work with younger people. RO will bring learners between the ages of 16 and 18; however, CY will bring people aged around 50.

Involvement of learners during transnational meetings: demonstration of what they do locally in English (?) or in their own language (translation by partner organisation’s staff) — or, if possible, a non-verbal communication activity — more fun, practical for younger participants (art, music, dance, e-games)?

Necessary to keep (especially younger) learners occupied during staff meetings, since they will not participate in these meetings (tourism, shopping, etc.).

Ø Study Visit

During mobilities, there will be a study visit. Ideally, this should be a demonstration of how the local partner is implementing the project and should consist of a visit/observation of, and/or participation in, a relevant IGL activity. It should be something simple, involve the learners and embody a cultural element as well. The host organisation can, for ex., demonstrate its teaching/learning methods to show how it works with its learners (again, an intergenerational activity would be best). The idea is to get all our learners to communicate even if they don’t speak the same language. The CY coordinator should be consulted/informed beforehand.

Ø Cultural activities

Cultural activities are equally important to project activities; someone should be assigned for sightseeing, going for a coffee, shopping or whatever.

Learners and staff must attend the study visit; attendance at staff meetings is optional.

· IV. Evaluation

2 kinds of evaluations:

Ø 1 for staff

Ø 1 for learners

The Spanish partner will draw up something so that we can evaluate the meetings.

10^th of October 2012

· V. Activities

Ø Over the course of project:

· 3-4 IGL activities to be organised/documented (including photos and logo visibility) in each partner country

Ø During the mobilities:

· Study visit

· Cultural visit

· Activity involving learners

Ø VI. Next meeting dates

Greece: 5^th-6^th of March, awaiting Spanish team’s confirmation.

France: 28^th-29^th of May or 4^th-5^th of June — also needs to be confirmed.

4^th meeting in Spain to be confirmed.

5^th and final meeting in Romania at the beginning of May 2014?

Note: IT is definitely no longer in project, thus there will not be 6 TNL meetings as planned, but only 5. This means that FR, for ex., will need to effectuate 10 more mobilities in three other countries by project’s end (for ex., 3 in Greece + 3 in Spain + 4 in Romania).

• VII. Tasks (upcoming, ongoing and final)

Ø Upcoming Tasks:

- Draft report on intergenerational learning: Each partner should provide in English a 1–2 page summary/overview of the current intergenerational (IGL) situation in its country/local community (European and local initiatives and relevant funding opportunities can be discussed) by the end of November 2012. Pictures are welcome.

- By mid-February 2013: Each partner should send an article for the 1^st newsletter to be edited by the Greek partner = half a page about a general topic on intergenerational learning, but could be good to include info. on local activities, dissemination events and photos.

- FR to provide a draft version of the consortium website/blog (where people can leave comments) by the end of Nov. 2012.

- FR to produce the final version of the above by mid-December 2012.

Ø Ongoing Tasks:

- In general, each partner is to conduct 3-4, paired, intergenerational (IGL) activities involving its learners (ICT-learning, for ex.). These activities are to be documented with photos, ideally showing the name of the project, its logo, etc.

- To be confirmed: Learner participation during TNL meeting in France involving demonstration of creation of Facebook page, leading to the actual creation of the project consortium’s Facebook page in English.

Ø Final Tasks:

- By June 2014, partner contributions (exactly what this will entail for each partner is yet to be determined) to the best-practice guide (which is the final objective of the project and should consist of ca. 30 pages of bullet points, be concise, easy-to-read and contain good info.) should be sent to CY for final report preparation.

- By August 2014, everything must be almost done and then finalised in September.

Notes:

• Tasks as assigned either in the project application or at TNL meetings may be transferred from one partner to another, if the task is not able to be realised by the partner to whom it was assigned.

• Changes can also be made to the proposal, itself, if there is a consensus that a task is irrelevant or unachievable (with the agreement of the entire consortium).

v Meeting adjourned: Distribution of attendance certificates to all present.