According to an expert report of the European Commission in 2012, almost 75 million Europeans are illiterate: this means they do not have the necessary basic skills (reading, writing, calculation) to be autonomous in our society. And a lot of inmates are concerned by this situation. Moreover, at best, more than half of the people in jail have only achieved primary education level and don't have a real professional qualification. Those situations obviously have many consequences, such as bad self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, great suffering, which often spill over onto the quality of the relations these people have with others and lead to social exclusion. To avoid this situation, we organise in many European countries cultural activities in jail to give inmates the desire to learn reading and writing. We wish inmates understand that learning is still possible, whatever the way and whenever they learn. To reduce illiteracy by promoting access to culture is enabling everyone to develop the necessary basic skills for everyday life in order to achieve a successful rehabilitation and be more autonomous in his family, professionnal and citizen life. At a time when Europe has made illiteracy reduction one of its priorities, and works on the harmonization of penitentiary policies, it's important to question how every European country works in the fields of access to culture and illiteracy reduction in prison and can improve the non formal learning in order to reduce, or even eliminate, social division. And the best way to go further on the issue is to confront methods and practices used to work in those fields in different European countries. Each participant will enrich his professional practice, discover new methods that he will be able to organise in the prison he works. This project is intended to people working in jail in the fields of access to culture and illiteracy reduction owing to non formal learning and in particular cultural activities. We will organise 4 transnational meetings where we will share, confront ideas, practices and methods. We also will meet with social workers, teachers working in jail and question with them the efficiency of their methods and our pratices to reduce illiteracy. It will also be the opportunity to discuss with inmates with reading and writing difficulties about the efficiency of activities we propose and try to think with them about new methods. An international conference on the issue will take place in Paris in 2021 to close this meeting series. A synthesis report will be made after each meeting as well as proceedings of the conference Expected impacts: - Develop our skills on how to use cultural activities to reduce illiteracy - Allow organisations to develop a European network of exchange of good practices to pursue collaboration - Increase our capacity to operate at transnational level - Initiate a process which will enable prisons to realise the importance of cultural activities for inmates and illiteracy reduction - Develop the consultation of inmates on cultural activities we propose - Develop the capacity of illiterated inmates to argue about a subject and give their opinion - Try to influence, at mid- or long-term, the cultural and illiteracy reduction policies in jail in order that cultural activities become essential in the field of illiteracy reduction
Our project "Reducing illiteracy in jail with cultural activities" was aimed at professionals working in prisons. The main objective was to enable a better mutual knowledge, a mutual enrichment and skills development so that they can develop their work methods and have more activities to propose to inmates. It also aimed to reinforce cooperation by developing an international network of professionals working in jails. To achieve those objectives, this project allowed to: - share, confront our practices and question non-formal and informal learning, especially cultural activities, as a mean of reducing illiteracy in prison. - share with other professionals working in prisons, such as teachers, social workers, to confront our work methods - exchange with inmates to try to evaluate with them the scope of the actions we organise on their learning and/or in their daily lives.
In Europe, the number of persons who are illiterate in prisons is very high, as is the number of inmates who have, at best, only achieved primary education level and don't have a real professional qualification. These situations lead to bad self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and great suffering, which often spill over onto the quality of the relations these people have with others and lead to social exclusion. To avoid this situation, we organise in many European countries cultural activities in jail to give inmates the desire to learn reading and writing. Through these activities, we wish inmates understand that learning is still possible, whatever the way and whenever they learn. That’s why, bringing together professionals who work in jail and questioning how we work in the fields of access to culture and fight against illiteracy in prisons to improve non-formal and informal learning in order to reduce social division, seemed essential to us.