Website: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2021-2-DE02-KA210-ADU-000045037
Start date 10-03-2022
End date 09-03-2024
Budget: 60.000,00 €
Coordinator: BIDA e.V.Kultur und Bildung
Partner: Asociación YO TE AJUDO (ES) , ICSE & CO (IT) , ASTIKI MIKERDOSKOPIKI ETAIRIA AENAO (EL)
Background
The approach of Education Through Sport, as well as the art education are fully part of the lifelong learning process, which could achieve an impact on the development of a knowledge-based society by enabling disadvantaged adult learners to improve their knowledge, skills and attitudes.
The Afrodita project brought together a small-scale partnership of 4 entities from 4 Member States to increase the quality in the adult education work and practices of the organisations involved by creating and sharing a training methodology, using the sport and art for development of key competences of marginalised adults in the participating project countries (Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain) and across Europe.
Afrodita offered training sessions tailored to the needs and realities of vulnerable adult learners, enhancing their skills and boosting their employability and integration in our European societies.
Moreover, Afrodita focused on the adults’ priority of “Improving the competences of educators and other adult education staff”, aiming at capacity-building of AEPs, at exchange of best practices and support of the development and sharing of innovative non-formal education methods using art and sport pedagogical approaches in the AE sector.
Objectives
The Afrodita project achieved to:
• Support adults at risk of exclusion by providing non-formal education through art & sport training and guidance, as a way of preventing social exclusion: 119 adult learners were directly involved in local trainings.
• Empower and strengthen the role of social workers/coaches, exchanging best practices on art & sport pedagogical approaches, making them able to deal with diversity in non-formal learning environment: 12 social workers/AEP were directly involved in international joint staff training.
• Build close cooperation between civil society, education and sport organisations, local authorities and the private sector to ensure the active participation of all members of the learning community in acquiring key competences of the adults at risk of exclusion: 11 cooperation agreements at local/regional level were signed for further collaborations in the 4 partner countries, using the Afrodita training methodology.
• Involve the wider community in the promotion of EU strategies for life-long learning and social inclusion of disadvantaged adult learners: 96 people from DE & ES were involved in dissemination events, as additional activities implemented by the partners to promote the Afrodita results.
Implementation
The main output delivered by Afrodita is a Training Toolbox for adult educators in 5 languages, meeting the needs of disadvantaged adults, available for free with open access.
Joint staff training gathered 12 social workers/coaches from Germany, Greece, Italy & Spain to exchange best practices and acquire knowledge on sport & art approaches. The trained staff was further in charge of using the new learned methods in pilot workshops with adult learners at local level. 5-days pilot trainings were implemented in the 4 countries, with total of 119 disadvantaged learners, mainly unemployed, migrants, refugees, NEETs and people from rural areas. All of them reported a high satisfaction with their participation, highlighting the interesting, dynamic activities, which all enjoyed, and asked for more similar trainings.
Two partners’ face-to-face meetings, and 4 video conferences took place to regularly monitor the project progress, quality and quantity indicators, possible risks, communication and dissemination plans, and partners’ responsibilities.
Local focus groups with interested public & private entities were formed. Project website & social media will be maintained as part of the dissemination, sustainability & follow-up activities.
Results
Afrodita delivered training material, training activities and awareness-raising events, tailored to the needs of disadvantaged learners and AEP from the 4 partner countries. During the project implementation was achieved the empowering and re-skilling of marginalised adults in the 4 partners’ regions and other EU countries, thanks to the transferability of the developed outputs. The partnership managed to equip the directly involved adult educators with new tools, using sport and art approaches in their daily trainings, which met the objective of supporting the social inclusion of vulnerable adults, providing quality tailored education. Moreover, networking at EU level for development of key competences and improvement of the basic & transversal skills of the EU citizens was developed, bringing together organisations from different parts of Europe to work together on common challenges, offering the best solutions in the AE sector.
At long term is expected that public & private stakeholders will show interest to adopt and integrate the Afrodita training toolbox in their regular training and educational activities, increasing the quality of the services provided to the people in need such as refugees, migrants, NEETs & rural people.
