POPULART project, using ART as a vehicle will offer unique pathways to adult education for active citizenship, personal development and fulfillment. POPULART will promote human development by self-motivation for learning and therefore will enhance individual skills development and the ability of each trainee to take responsibility for his own life. POPULART will also strengthen the development of civil society and the society as a whole, as well as the development of democratic values. Additionally, through the Community Psychology course that POPULART will design and offer, will serve as a mean to promote the wellbeing, crisis management, multiculturalism, internationalization and global justice. POPULART will deliver a methodological framework for using arts in Popular University, and a unique interactive and multimedia course on Community psychology through Arts. Community Psychology employs various perspectives within and outside of psychology to address issues of communities, the relationships within them, and related people's attitudes and behaviour. Using ART as the trigger, ICT tools and new methods of teaching, POPULART will combine disciplines which have been isolated from one another under traditional educational models. ICT tools will be used to allow the trainee to interact with an Artwork (a painting, a sculpture, a vase, a jewel, etc) and make learning more interactive and experiential. According to EU statistics, adults with low education attainment are seven times less likely to be engaged in continuing education and training than those with high attainment levels. At the same time a learner's socio-economic background still has an important impact on his/her chances to access and succeed in education and training at whatever level. These are major challenges which POPULART addresses to promote social inclusion, intercultural skills, democratic values, the respect of fundamental rights and the fight against discrimination, equipping trainees to interact positively with their peers from diverse backgrounds. The objectives of the project are: -To change attitudes and stereotypes regarding adult education. -To create a training methodology, adequate for Popular University, promoting art-based experiential learning for adult education. -To develop ICT tools (arts database and interactive e-books authoring tool) that will help trainers to apply art-based training in the framework of POPULART and for future courses. -To develop training material on Community Psychology in the form of e-books(using ICT), engaging adult learners through art. -Offer lifelong learning that is accessible to all, regardless of age, vulnerability, religion and educational, cultural and economic backgrounds. The adult participants that will be involved in the training courses are: -50 from the city of Nea Smyrni, -50 from the city of Sant Boi, and -30 from the city of Limassol. The majority of the participants are expected to be low skilled and low qualified, while 20 of them are estimated to be adults with fewer opportunities(Economic obstacles, Cultural Differences and Disability). The duration of the project is 26 months and the activities planned are: A0: Project Management A1: Pedagogical framework for art based adult education A2: Development of the ICT tools A3: Development of the Community Psychology course in the form of e-books A4: Training And Certification A5: Exploitation A6: Dissemination Expected Intellectual Outputs include: O1: POPULART methodology O2: Arts online database O3: ICT Platform(First prototype M10 - final prototypeM21) O4: Art based training course on Community Psychology O5: Certification Scheme for the Certification of Assessment O6: Sustainability, exploitation and replication guide In parallel, 2 workshops, 2 focus groups and 3 multiplier events will take place for the dissemination of the project. The countries that constitute the consortium are Greece, Spain, Cyprus and UK. The consortium has been formulated to be able to handle all risks involved in the project and consists of 2 municipalities active in adult training, a University involved with Arts, a Software company with expertise in educational applications, a specialized company on Psychology and training, a Certification company and the Hellenic National Commission UNESCO. The project requires a transnational approach, since it comes to propose a best practice towards EU strategic challenges, facing common EU problems. To reach its goal and in line with EU directives, the project will promote equity and active citizenship enabling all citizens, irrespective of age, gender and socio-economic background, to acquire, update and develop skills and the key competencies needed to foster further learning, active citizenship and intercultural dialogue. UNESCO will promote the project through its Global Network of Learning Cities in order to be adapted from more cities and enhance its sustainability.
POPULART project, using ART as a vehicle offered unique pathways to adult education for active citizenship, personal development and fulfillment. POPULART promotes human development by self-motivation for learning and therefore enhances individual skills development and the ability of each trainee to take responsibility for his own life. POPULART also strengthens the development of civil society and the society as a whole, as well as the development of democratic values. Additionally, through the Community Psychology course that POPULART offers, serves as a mean to promote the wellbeing, crisis management, multiculturalism, internationalization and global justice. POPULART delivered a methodological framework for using arts in Popular University, and 11 interactive and multimedia courses on Community psychology through Arts. Community Psychology employs various perspectives within and outside of psychology to address issues of communities, the relationships within them, and related people's attitudes and behaviour. Using ART as the trigger, POPULART combines disciplines which have been isolated from one another under traditional educational models. The objectives of the project were: -To change attitudes and stereotypes regarding adult education. -To create a training methodology, adequate for Popular University, promoting art-based experiential learning for adult education. -To develop ICT tools (arts database and interactive e-books authoring tool) that will help trainers to apply art-based training in the framework of POPULART and for future courses. -To develop training material on Community Psychology in the form of e-books(using ICT), engaging adult learners through art. -Offer lifelong learning that is accessible to all, regardless of age, vulnerability, religion and educational, cultural and economic backgrounds. The adult participants that were involved in the training courses were: -66 from the city of Nea Smyrni, -43 from the city of Sant Boi, and -27 from the city of Limassol. The majority of the participants were low skilled and low qualified, while many of them were adults with fewer opportunities(Economic obstacles, Cultural Differences and Disability). The total number of the participant was 136(from the 130 originally planned) but there were some slight differentiations in the numbers per country. From the 96 applied for certification and 91 received a certification. The activities of the project included: A0: Project Management A1: Pedagogical framework for art based adult education A2: Development of the ICT tools A3: Development of the Community Psychology course in the form of e-books A4: Training And Certification A5: Exploitation A6: Dissemination TheIntellectual Outputs are: O1: POPULART methodology O2: Arts online database O3: ICT Platform O4: Art based training course on Community Psychology(11 ebooks) O5: Certification Scheme for the Certification of Assessment O6: Sustainability, exploitation and replication guide During the project 2 workshops, 2 focus groups and 3 multiplier events took place for the dissemination of the project. The particpating countries were Greece, Spain, Cyprus and UK. These include municipalities active in adult training, a University that is involved with Arts, a Software company with expertise in educational applications, a specialized company on Psychology and training, a Certification company, a company active in the training field and the Hellenic National Commission UNESCO.