Context:
In the past decades, Europe has experienced several waves of migration: displaced persons before, during and after World War II, in the 1960s when "guest workers" were invited from South Europe to the richer states, and after the fall of the Iron Curtain. There are millions of older people who are "European citizens" in the sense that they have lived in several European countries, cultures and societies and who have thus collected considerable experience of "a wider Europe". However, the tremendous treasure of those older people who have experienced a multilingual and multicultural life in Europe has hitherto been neglected. This treasure must be "unearthed" and transferred to younger generations before it will literally "die out".

Goal:
The project "European Generation Link" will develop, as its main product, a web-based platform that contains recordings of people who have, during their lifetime, lived in more than one European country. Tandem teams of young and old people will learn from each other in this project: The older generations will tell their life stories of having lived in various European countries and societies, the younger generation will record and document them in an interactive library and simultaneously teach basic IT skills to the older people. This will help to understand historical backgrounds and provide reflection in order to increase tolerance and to reduce prejudices and xenophobia.

The site will be arranged similarly to a real library, with individual volumes containing the "stories". They will be based on structured interviews and be complemented with photographs as well as audio files and videoclips and they will provide insight into the richness of Europe's cultural and societal heritage.

Within the project, Artemisszió Foundation is responsible for compiling a study that evaluates the current situation of adult education, intercultural and intergenerational learning in Hungary. Along with the other country reports, this study will be part of a European-wide report on the key issues of learning between generations and cultures. In addition, Artemisszió will help to form the learning pairs between young people and elder migrants. Last, but not least, Artemisszió will organize an information day, where projects results and conclusions will be shared with relevant educational authorities.

The official site of the project: www.european-generation-link.org

Partners:

BEST Training, Austria
Banlieues, Belgium
KTP- Association for Qualifications at the Labor Market, Czech Republic
Volkshochschule Cham (Adult Education Centre Cham), Germany
Gabinet d'Estudis Socialis , Spain
IRFA Sud, France
Cittá della Scienza, Italy
LPIA- Latvian Association for Adult Education, Latvia
BIR- Centre for Development Initiatives, Poland
FOLK- People's University Kristianstad, Sweden
University of Glasgow, Department of Adult Continuous Education, united Kingdom
PAPILOT- Institution for enhancing and developing life quality, Slovenia
Carpathian Foundation, Romania
GLOBAL, Turkey

Strategic Partners:

AKNÖ (Workers' Chamber Austria)
Social Ministry Hessen, Germany
CINOP (Centre for expertise for the innovation of education), the Netherlands

The project is funded by the SOCRATES-GRUNDTVIG programme of the European Commission.
 

Between May 12 and 14, 2006, our Foundation organized movement and theater workshops. In these workshops, participants got to know methods that can be used to strengthen intercultural competences.
 

The objective of the art workshops was to explore the ways in which methods of theatre and dance could be used to improve intercultural relations and facilitate dialogue between different cultures. In the first place, the workshops aimed at the transmission of tools that participants could use in their everyday work. In addition, it was equally important to strengthen the intercultural competence of participants themselves through the instrumental use of theatre and movement. Two main schools were represented at the workshops.
 

The approach represented by Madeleine Kinigadner (pedagogue, choreographer, coworker of a psychiatric institute and of a civil organization dedicated to culture and social theater) places the body in the centre through the purposeful use of movement. The 18-hour workshop based on contact improvisation dealt with universal, yet unconscious aspects of human behavior including physical distance and eye contact between interacting parties, the pace of interaction and non-verbal reactions to the behavior of others.
 

Verana Kiegler's social theatre builds on drama-pedagogical games and theatre elements. Verena Kiegler explores the social application of theatre work, for instance, in her disabled integrated company. The workshop focused on games and practices that foster cooperation and teamwork. More specifically, they can be used to establish mutual trust, articulate support for the community, take note of social and environmental factors, lastly, enhance expression and creativity.

This international cooperation began in January 2005 and is connected with the Lisbon Strategy of the European Union. The aim of the participating organizations is to contribute to the spread of life-long learning through surveying and extending the array of key competencies. In the first phase of the project we mapped out the ways in which key competencies are defined in the participating countries. This extended list has been compared with the real needs of employees and employers, and we have explored to what extent the various groups of employees feel the need to possess such key competencies and what learning paths and channels they see as the most efficient for acquiring any given competence. Based on the results of this survey, the international partnership started the development of a training catalogue that offers training paths for employees to develop the relevant key competencies. According to its profile, the Artemisszió Foundation undertook the development of the interpersonal - intercultural training theme.