Our main objective was to embrace the ecological, economic, cultural and social aspects of sustainability in teaching, guidance and everyday operations. Therefore the goal was to to enhance the pedagogical skills of our staff, incorporating the aspects of sustainability. This means having the staff participate in transnational training courses that explore various ways of teaching, as well as getting to know how other educational institutions operate and what kind of experience they have of the topic. When the teachers and other staff of the lifelong learning centre and the pedagogic staff of the library familiarize themselves with new teaching methods and ideas, they improve their competences and those of the organizations. An important objective, in addition to enhancing the competences of the staff, was also to improve their wellbeing at work and their commitment to the organization, which also an aspect of social sustainability.
We wanted to implement this project, because a European training project provides our organisation with new ideas and fresh points of view that cannot be achieved in an internal or domestic training. In this project we wanted particularly to develop sustainable practices in both pedagogically and in our everyday operations. We particularly wanted to offer training opportunities for our part-time teachers. Valkeakoski Lifelong Learning Centre offers training services to its customers in five municipalities, and Valkeakoski library serves not only Valkeakoski citizens but also the inhabitants of other municipalities in the region. By implementing this project we wanted to get tools to promote the wellbeing of the inhabitants in a sustainable way. To achieve this goal, our staff needed ideas and thoughts to create courses, services and events that serve sustainable development.