The STEP project’s objective is not only to reduce the barriers that make it harder for senior people to participate, collaborate, or make their voices heard in society but, also, to empower and encourage seniors who want to take the next steps towards accomplishing their personal goals and dreams.
To achieve this, the partnership will work towards designing and producing a Curriculum, an Online Course and a Compendium for adult educators in order to train and empower this target group first. In a second step, a framework of local and European workshops will be designed to empower seniors. These workshops will be built around five topics (M01 Lifelong learning in Europe, M02 Digital Literacy, M03 Prevention and Health promotion, M04 Social and economic integration, M05 Political participation) and make use of a range of European frameworks and instruments.
The main objectives of the project include:
- educate adult educators and other professionals of the community working with seniors (front-line workers like librarians, social workers, carers) for empowering seniors by creating meaningful training resources and tools;
- make these adult educators familiar with the growing group of senior learners, their needs and interests as well as with the variety of European frameworks and tools in adult education;
- promote a culture of inclusion that will encourage and equip seniors with additional competencies to embrace new roles within volunteering, working or (self)employment and to change the paradigm of living longer and wanting to be active and involved in society for longer;
- develop with the local workshops an ecosystem that will contribute to shape positive and active attitudes of seniors, contribute to their direct inclusion in activities for their communities, which will have an influence on the development of local communities and the multidimensionality of generational civil dialogue;
- support seniors to remain active through various options of topics addressed in local and European workshops, according to their interests, experience and roles that want to take – entrepreneur, volunteer, activist, mentor, carer, adviser, etc;
- promote their self-esteem and self-belief, interconnectedness and belonging in the community and beyond.
During its 24-month lifetime, STEP will directly and indirectly positively impact:
40
seniors
60
adult educators
15
stakeholders organisations
STEP at a glance
- 5 Local Working Groups (40 people)
- 60 adult educators for piloting
- 15 stakeholder organisations in piloting
- 6 language versions of Methodology Handbook and Curriculum
- 1 Online Course (6 modules) on learning platform in 6 languages
- 60 adult educators in piloting
- 15 stakeholder organisations in piloting
- 150 initial users of the training material
- 1 Compendium in 6 languages
- 1 Empowerment Campaign for Adult Educators with: 4 Newsletters in 6 languages at least 1.000 contacts; Social Media posts on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook (300 in total); 25 press releases; 5 publications each on the EPALE platforms
- 2 National Multiplier Events per country with 175 external participants
- 1 International ME in EN with 40 participants online
- 1 Conceptualisation of Courses Framework in 6 languages
- 1 Empowerment Campaign for seniors with: 1 Empowerment Booklet in 6 languages; 1 Leaflet for workshops among seniors on local level (500 printed); 1 Poster for workshops (250 printed); Social Media posts directed at seniors (100); 25 press releases in local press, announcing 75 local workshops (750 seniors)
- 5 European workshops (3 days each) with 25 adult educators & 25 seniors
- 2 National ME per country, involving at least 25 seniors per country.