B.I.G. D.E.A.L. Bridging Input Gaps for the Disadvantaged to Enhance the outcome of non-formal Adult Learning The partnership is a network of educators in the field of non-formal adult learning; most of them work in the cultural and creative fields. We believe there is gap between supply and demand in non-formal adult learning. This gap is even wider for adults living in a disadvantaged situation. We are convinced that we can overcome this gap if we, as educators, continue to learn and improve our practices, if we on the organizational level, dare to share our strengths and weaknesses and express our need for growth and recognition, if we implement an efficient communication in our local activities plan and - last but not at least - if we improve access to non-formal learning, especially for those who nowadays need it the most: young healthy adults coping with obstacles and with fewer opportunities in their lives. We focus on challenges pointed out by the European horizontal priorities (2017): ‘Achievement of relevant and high quality skills and competences’ and ‘social inclusion’. The strategic partnership will work on three basic lines and objectives: new methods and increased educators’ competences by ‘teaching the teachers’ and exchanging good practice (1). New interpersonal and social skills which we will use in future work (with the target group) thus professionalizing the educators/facilitators. Strengthening and growth on organizational level with long-lasting relationships on an international level by networking mean for us higher quality of education which is one of the basic needs in cultural field. We improve the communication (2) to facilitate the access (3) and we challenge the work as an ongoing process of activating people and attracting them by our offer. The main results of the partnership are: a website and a network where we share best practices from the partners, photos and videos; a Learning Program that others are free to use (based on peer review, feedback and evaluation, workshop results …). The target group we will focus on, are adults from the age of 24 onwards, who finished formal education and who are not participating in any kind of non-formal learning. Many studies have shown that the consequences of having fewer opportunities in one’s professional life are directly linked to living in a poor social and cultural environment. At the same time, these people have an enormous potential in their human capital, we see the energy and the eagerness to learn and to create. Six partners from around the Europe represent the partnership: two cultural centers, two theater groups, one social service provider and one over-arching council. What we all have in common are cultural and creative practices as a tool of self development in non-formal learning. The main activity during whole project will be exchanging good practice and sharing our experience with the participants. During LTT meeting in every partner country we share our best methods. Besides learning from each other, every partner will implement the achieved competences in their hometowns. By a good follow-up and constant communication we succeed in the implementation and internalization. The method we determine has logic, actions and a time schedule. It structures the work of the partnership. The method goes through four phases, has a circular movement and allows us to come back on previous phases. The steps and processes in the method are dynamic. Phase one is the ‘picture’ of the partnership, followed by phase two: the ‘learning’, the ‘process’ starts in the third phase and is related to the implementation of the new skills which over a certain time goes to: ‘internalization of these skills and the fourth phase and the fourth, final phase of the method, the ‘dissemination’. The four phases are ‘structural embedded’ which means in dialogue and supported by the local organization. We share method- and evidence based practices, what conducts to better educators. All our conclusions we will put on the open website. This website will be a place where educators, can not only be inspired by our practices, but can ask for feedback and discuss their case studies with educators from all over Europe. We will also prepare a “hard word booklet dictionary” with all useful terminology. According to the third objective, which is better access and more active and satisfied adults we invest in dissemination as crucial part of this project. Effective dissemination leads us to strong and large impact and the sustainability of our project.
B.I.G. D.E.A.L. Bridging Input Gaps for the Disadvantaged to Enhance the outcome of non-formal Adult Learning The partnership is a network of educators in the field of non-formal adult learning; our main objective is the development of good and effective practices of creative arts to improve the life of our target group: adults living in a disadvantaged situation. BIG DEAL has the purpose to improve the quality of the educational offer of every partner. The project shows how non-formal-, creative learning can be used as an effective tool to help people develop basic (social) skills, e.g. developing their human capital. It aspires to bridge the gap between skills thus acquired and skills required to successfully participate in society. The need of this partnership is acquiring basic skills for adults through creative, artistic and cultural practices: with theater for language and literacy, with dance and other artistic practices for self-assertiveness and with the participatory settings fostering social development. We show that creative learning is effective. We believe there is gap between supply and demand in non-formal adult learning. This gap is even wider for adults living in a disadvantaged situation. We found out that we can overcome this gap by continuing to learn and improve our practices, as educators, by sharing our strengths and weaknesses, on the organizational level, and by expressing our need for growth and recognition. We implemented efficient communication in our local activities, we planned and have improved the access to non-formal learning, especially for those who need it the most: adults coping with obstacles and with fewer opportunities in their lives. We focused our partnership on the challenges pointed out by the European horizontal priorities (2017): ‘Achievement of relevant and high-quality skills and competences’ and ‘social inclusion’. BIG DEAL worked on three basic lines and objectives: 1 - Better educators 2 - Better communication 3 - Better access to our non-formal adult learning activities for people living in a disadvantaged situation We developed new methods and increased our educators’ competencies with workshops and training: ‘teaching the teachers’ and the exchange of good practice, captured in the Learning Agreements. Through our training, we professionalized the educators/facilitators (1). We developed new interpersonal and social skills which we used in our work with the target group. We strengthened and contributed to the growth on the organizational level with long-lasting relationships between the partners of BIG DEAL and with them develop further networking. We improved our communication (2) and we facilitated the access and we challenged the work as an ongoing process of activating people and attracting them by our offer (3). What the six partners from BIG DEAL have in common are our cultural and creative practices: two cultural centers, two theater groups, one social service provider and one over-arching council. We developed our findings (see website) through creative and artistic practices as a tool of self-development in the field of non-formal adult learning. Besides the fact that we learned from each other, every participant acquired better skills and competencies and thus implemented our methods in their hometown organization. By a good follow-up and constant communication, we succeeded in the implementation and internalization at each of our partners. The method we used Promundo Toolkit-for-Action showed itself logically, the actions and a time schedule structured. The method showed that the four phases are effective and obtain results: Phase one is the ‘picture’ of the objectives, followed by phase two: the ‘learning and exchanging’, the third phase is the ‘process’ refers to the implementation and the ‘internalization’ of newly acquired skills. During the fourth phase, the final phase: the ‘dissemination’ starts. All the phases are ‘structural embedded’ which means with the support and in dialogue by the partner organization as a whole. The BIG DEAL results are on our website www.bgdl.eu, where we share best practices from the partners, photos and videos; our Learning Programs available for anybody free to use (on demand) We use our open website to post our method- and evidence-based practices, what conducts us to better educators. This website is a place where educators, can not only be inspired by our practices but can ask for feedback and discuss their case studies with educators from all over Europe, see (‘about us’). We created a ‘hard word booklet dictionary’ in the form of a PDF and is available on demand. The ‘hard word booklet dictionary’ is in English and is very useful to find out what is the meaning of the jargon used in non-formal adult learning. According to the third objective, which is better access for people who are in a disadvantaged situation the ‘hard word booklet’ is a crucial part of this project.