The project

The project addresses to 3 from the many individual and collective fears and vulnerabilities brought into light by COVID-19 crisis we are still facing with:

  1. our seniors are very fragile and we need to take care not only of their health and wellbeing but also of the priceless heritage they possess (from life stories to arts, crafts and mysteries) that could be forever lost after their dying
  2. globalisation made us slaves of buying same ”made in China” products (from furniture to cakes, same appearances, smells, tastes and sounds) and we neglect many beautiful thinks made by people in our neighbourhood, so many traditional crafts are faster and faster disappearing. But these represent not only a rich and complex interwoven tapestry combining tradition, heritage, culture, skills and design but also a mirror of the diversity of European cultural identity. In most cases, the biggest endangering on these priceless cultural values is the age of people who know and practice them – usually oldsters with artistic skills, handicraft masters, but illiterate in the fields of IT and entrepreneurship (representing indispensable competences for making their crafts to survive). 
  3. ICT skills are, sometimes, more important than writing – in these days to know or to not know how to use a smartphone, an application for on-line shopping or a platform for on-line communication can make the difference between life and death

Not at least, EU itself face with a strong identity crisis due to an increased lack of trust even from many EU ”fans”.

In this context the main goal of the project is to contribute to facilitate a bigger participation of senior artisans with strong handicraft skills but illiterate in entrepreneurship and ICT and with a high level of Euroscepticism, in educational activities aiming to improve all lacking competences they need in order to promote and give forward their arts and keep, in this way, the EU’s ”united in diversity” heritage.

Specific objectives:

  1. enhancing the professional development of 154 adult educators by equipping them with important knowledge, improved abilities and behaviours needed to make them more flexible in adapting their educational tools to the need of a resistant and Euroscepting generation of senior artisans
  2. increasing the entrepreneurial and ICT competencies at the level of 280 senior artisans and fostering European identity and awareness both at their level and at the level of at least 21 small communities they are living in – by developing and testing new, innovative and flexible (easy to adapt) training materials that use the expertise of 7 countries

The project is developed by a partnership including 7 organisations covering the whole Europe (from North – Poland – to South – Italy and from West – Portugal to East – Romania) with different backgrounds, expertise and approaches of adult education issues, particularly with senior learners. So both the intellectual outputs and all the activities of the project will combine the skills of experts – trainers, tutors, researchers, technical staff etc. from all partners’ countries, which means that a wide range of tools will be used.

We will produce 3 intellectual outputs and make them public in an attractive on-line interface – we will buy a domain having the word ”artisan” in the name and the first image will be a handmade gift box with a bow. When users click the bow the box will open and 3 smaller boxes will arise, having different inscriptions:

  1. ”Collect raw materials” for IO1 (an overall view of the ”state of art” related to senior artisans with strong handicraft skills but illiterate in entrepreneurship and ICT and a high level of Euroscepticism – in each country, common points and possible areas of transferability)
  2. ”Create” for IO2 – an educational path to be used by professionals in adults’ education dealing with such kind of seniors
  3. ”Admire (and buy, if you like)” for IO3 – a digital archive with stories about products, aiming to facilitate senior artisans’ educational process but also to support them in marketing their products. It will be an on-line museum of arts and crafts across Europe, from which many of them are in danger of disappearing

We will develop activities both at international and national/local levels as follows:

  • 5 transnational coordination meetings
  • transnational and local activities for developing the intellectual outputs;
  • 2 short-term joint staff training events,
  • one blended mobility for learners
  • local piloting activities, aimed at testing the methodologies created by the project on 140 professionals in adults’ education (20 in each country) and 280 senior artisans with strong handicraft skills but illiterate in entrepreneurship and ICT and a high level of Euroscepticism (40 in each country)
  • one international multiplying event (RO)
  • 6 national multiplying events (IT, MT, UK, PL, PT, ES)

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