LICEAL: Transnational Project Meeting in Almuñécar, Spain
On November 6 and 7, 2023, the LICEAL project consortium was hosted by the Spanish partner Learning Designers in Almuñécar, Spain. The LInking Citizenship and Employability perspectives in Adult Learning strategies and practices project – funded by the Erasmus + programme – aims at highlighting the connection between better employability opportunities and Citizenship competences, as described in the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC), among the NEETs of all ages. The project is coordinated by Association EDIAS (France) in partnership with the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Italy), the Fondation des Régions Européennes pour la Recherche, l’Éducation, et la Formation (France), Comitato Promotore S-NODI Gabriele Nigro (Italy), Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (Belgium), Learning Designers (Spain), Wiener Forum für Demokratie und Menschenrechte (Austria), Bogazici Universitesi (Turkey), Pôle emploi Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (France). The LICEAL partnership is currently working on three important products: an Analytical Review of best practices on linking Citizenship Education and employability, a Toolkit for adult learners who wish to find better employment opportunities through Citizenship competences, and a collection of Guidelines to support adult educators in integrating Citizenship Education in their training paths. The Transnational Project Meeting focused on a very important step in the creation of these outputs: their validation through stakeholders’ consultation. In Almuñécar, the partners had the chance to review internally the final draft of the Analytical Review and the structure and concept of the Toolkit and the Guidelines, while also planning the validation through the stakeholders, establishing their number and professional qualification together with the appropriate deadlines. In 2024 we will have the chance to present these important results.
PERFECT: Transnational Project Meeting in Malta
On October 12th and 13th the Transnational Project meeting of the project PERFECT took place in Malta. Partners gather in La Valletta to discuss the development of the different phases of the project. More specifically, the school partners reported on the development of the different performances made by the students that will be soon presented in Sanremo at the end of February. The meeting also serves partners to align on the other outputs of the project.
MUST-a-Lab: Fourth Transnational Project Meeting in Vienna, Austria
From October 18 to October 20, 2023, the MUST-a-Lab project consortium gathered in Vienna, hosted by the Human Rights Office of the Municipality. The project MUlti STakeholders Labs for migrants and stakeholders – funded by the Asylum,Migration and Inclusion Fund of the European Commission – aims at incorporating the Policy Lab methodology in the policy-making process of six local administrations involved as project partners, in order to co-design new policies and practices for the integration of migrants together with the final beneficiaries. For this purpose, three gatherings of the Policy Labs took place throughout the end of 2022 and 2023 in Mechelen (Belgium), Grenoble Alpes Métropole (France), Modena (Italy), Vienna (Austria), Fuenlabrada (Spain) and Livadia (Greece). The Vienna meeting’s primary objective was to review the preliminary outcomes of the Policy Labs held in the six cities, and to plan the final one, from which will result in a collection of Policy Recommendations that the Municipalities will approve and adopt in 2024. As the project aims at producing a long-term impact on the policy making process in terms of participatory democracy, 2024 will be a crucial year for the partners to multiply and disseminate the Policy Lab approach and results on a national, european and international level. For this purpose, the main focus of the meeting was on defining a roadmap for organizing dissemination events and creating networks with other cities, organisations and projects that could be interested in replicating and learning from the MUST-a-Lab experience. As the partner in charge of conveying the Policy Lab methodology and of coordinating the engagement, communication and dissemination activities, the Institute played and will keep playing a very crucial role in the implementation of the MUST-a-Lab project over the next year.
CITIZED: Final Conference in Brussels
On 28th and 29th November, the Final Event of the project CITIZED – Policy Implementation support and teacher empowerment for Citizenship Education took place in Brussels. The project, coordinated by the Institute and including partners from Austria, Belgium, France and Malta, focused on the enhancement of teachers capacity-building initiatives in the field of citizenship education and on their empowerment, as well as on fostering the schools’ efforts in the field by filling existing implementation gaps between policy statements and daily practice in the schools through the suggestion of evidence-based policy improvements.
The Final Conference was composed of two events, the first focusing on the practical tools developed within the project and the second on the policy recommendations on citizenship education. Both events were hosted within the framework of the Lifelong Learning Week, annually organised by the Lifelong Learning Platform, and registered the participation of both high-level educational experts and policy-makers, among whom members of the European Parliament, ministerial officials, school heads, teachers and representatives of many different educational stakeholders.
CITIZED: Transnational Project Meeting in Brussels
On 27th November, the Final Transnational Project Meeting of the project CITIZED – Policy Implementation support and teacher empowerment for Citizenship Education took place in Brussels. All partners gathered to discuss the project, which came to an end at the end of November, and to finalise its outcomes and their dissemination, as well as the organisation of the Final Conference. Moreover, the meeting was an occasion to explore possible follow-ups to the CITIZED project, as the partnership had a brainstorming on the aspects they would like to develop in future projects.
CITIZED: Teachers Training Event in Reggio Emilia
On 10th November 2023, the Teachers’ Training Event “Educazione alla cittadinanza: come insegnare la materia?”, in the framework of the project CITIZED – Policy Implementation support and teacher empowerment for Citizenship Education took place in Reggio Emilia.
The event was organised on the occasion of the series of open meetings on citizenship “Identità e Cittadinanza… Una via da seguire” and the inauguration of the exhibition on Identity and Citizenship organised by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.
The event was an occasion for teachers and teachers in training to learn more about the situation of Citizenship Education in Italy and in Europe, and to present the course for teachers and future teachers ‘Educating for citizenship: bullying and cyberbullying, gender equality, diversity, inclusion and freedom of expression’. The course was developed within the framework of the CITIZED project, as a training course on Citizenship Education focusing on four specific topics: bullying and cyberbullying, gender equality, diversity, inclusion and freedom of expression. In order for the course to be better explained, the audience was invited to participate in some activities, extracted by the course itself, which also represented an occasion of discussion and exchange between the more experienced teachers and the teachers to be.
Statement
Following the dramatic news coming from Israel and Palestine, the Education Inspiring Peace Laboratory expresses its deepest concerns for the death toll, injuries, taking of hostages and displacement of the Israeli and Palestinian civilian populations.
As an association committed to the promotion of a peaceful world through the implementation of peace education activities, the EIP Lab firmly supports the need to pursue a peaceful settlement of the ongoing armed conflict.
It is our belief that all diplomatic efforts should be channelled to reach an immediate ceasefire, which is a necessary pre-condition not only for the provision of much-needed emergency and humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the short term but, more importantly, to inaugurate a larger debate on the construction of a concrete path towards a sustainable peace in the longer term.
GOTALK: Kick-off meeting in Antwerp
Recently approved, the CERV project GO TALK officially started in September 2023 with its Kick-off meeting, which took place in Antwerp, Belgium. The meeting was hosted by the Karel de Grote University College, the coordinator of the project.
GOTALK’s general objective is improving the level of inclusiveness, sustainability and policy impact of children councils that operate in daily-life environments; aiming to develop more systemic facilitation of meaningful, safe and inclusive children’s participation rights in decision-making processes.
The project will last two years and will mainly take place in Italy and in Belgium.
Arguing at School: Transnational Project Meeting and Multiplier Event in Ogulin
On September 1st, the Litigare a Scuola consortium met in Ogulin, Croatia, for the Transnational Project Meeting. The meeting was hosted by the Croatian partners of the school Osnovna škola Ivana Gorana Kovačića Vrbovsko.
The consortium, during the Transnational Project Meeting, discussed some key steps to be taken in the implementation of the project. Among others, the Policy Labs, which will be coordinated by the IIHL, will take place between Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024, starting from the first Policy Lab in Milan in October 2023.
Arguing at School: Learning Teaching Training Activities (LTTA) week in Ogulin
During the last week of August, from August 28th to 31st, a Learning Teaching Training Activity (LTTA) of the project Arguing at School took place in Ogulin, Croatia.
It aimed to train educators and teachers from various nations (Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Malta and Romania) on three innovative psycho-pedagogical approaches designed to give children and adolescents the competences to manage conflicts autonomously.
These three approaches include the “Litigare bene” method by Daniele Novara, developed by CPP in Italy and implemented in a few schools in other countries like Croatia; the Friendship Cards, created by the Relationships are Forever Foundation, is used in Malta and translated into 20 languages; the Peer Mediation method developed and used in Croatia.
The primary emphasis was on underscoring the idea that adults (parents, educators, or teachers) should no longer take an active role in resolving children’s disputes. Instead, they should instruct adolescents in emotional intelligence, which, coupled with communication skills, will empower students to navigate their conflicts (such as disagreements with classmates) independently.
