Among European countries, Hungarian and Romanian elderly people do not have enough opportunities to participate in social, educational and cultural programs which are beneficial for them in knowledge acquisition, health and mental status prevention, stabilization, or cultural, artistic development. Although there are a few local initiatives, these are isolated, there are not communication and cooperation among them, and they are without long term conceptions. In Hungary, there are few adult educational programs which are based specifically on the needs of seniors, the participation of 50+ people in the adult education is only about 10 % in Hungary, as in Romania. The results of our research show that senior experts and groupleaders are open to participating on training developing their culturgeragogic, musicgeragogic, artistic, and intergenererational competences with seniors even in abroad. It seems that is a social need to broaden the range of adult education opportunities for seniors and groupleaders dealing with seniors with different types of senior developmental trainings. KIFE has already a Senior Development Program that trains team leaders who organize groups of elderly people in knowledge acquisition, health and mental status stabilization, and the social role of the elderly. However, we want to acquire the European approach of the holistic development of seniors which works in a prosperous way in Germany, Austria for a long time, than we want to share it with adult educators in Hungary and in Romania, too. Our common project goals with partners having the similar mission are to learn more about the variety of the senior development in European level, to share our experiences, and to ensure the knowledge-transfer through mutually developed learning and measuring tools with adult educators in national and transnational level, as well. Our main goal is to extend and develop the methodological repertoare and competences of educators participating in different types of senior trainings, namely Musicgeragogy, Biography, Intergenerational education, Painting Academy, Kinaesthtics, Mental and Cognitive Devopmental Program. In order to reach equal effects in all of the partner countries, it is important to implement the trainings with 5-5 participants from each country and with a German-Hungarian interpreter. Thus, in an ideal case totally 64 participants will be trained, but there can be overlapping between participants of the trainings. The other main goal is to develop innovative methodological training curricula for senior trainers in English, German, and Hungarian which contain teaching and training methodologies of these developmental programs with the following expectations: moduls must be minimum 50.000 characters, their texts have to be easily accessible, operated and comprehensible; these must contain the main charasteristics of the training activities as an introduction to the given developmental program. The third goal is to develop mechanisms to monitor the effectiveness of adult learning courses and the progress of adult learners. We will develop an evaluation system, a Learning Outcomes Survey which can be appropriate to assess the effectiveness of the train the senior trainers programme in English. This questionnaire will be appropriate to gather the learning outcomes of the trainings through evaluating the input and the output of the trainings. It will be focused on the main aspects of the learning process: knowledge, skills, responsibility, autonomy, and attitude. As a results of the project, there will be more developed senior trainers, and a variety of developmental opportunities, so the seniors have more opportunities to participate in social and cultural programs, tranings and activities which are beneficial for them in knowledge acquisition, health and mental status prevention, stabilization, or cultural, artistic development. Each partner oraganisation will be able to organise a wider range of senior courses sharing the approach of the holistic development of seniors and the European educational priorities causing a mutual developmental step to a further, long-term transnational level cooperation of the partner organisations. It might cause also change in the attitude of the decision-makers of the civil society concerning the roles and social image of the seniors, that is an important indirect impact of the project. We will disseminate the results of the project between elderly people in events for seniors, through our partner organisations, and on regular dissemination platforms e.g: homepage, social networks, newsletters. We plan to arrange annually, theme days/workshops for senior educators involving the participants of the project. We will ensure the free availability of our results on the official project website of each partners and in EPALE forum.
The strategic goal of the project was two folded related to the implementation of the National Ageing Strategy. First goal was to extend and develop the methodological repertoare and competences of educators, leaders of senior groups, staff and volunteers working as peer helpers of senior clubs or organisations who can activate and motivate seniors in the aging societies, develop their mental, physical, social and creative skills with various types of developmental program. The other main goal was to develop innovative methodological training curricula in three languages which contain teaching and training methodologies of the different senior developmental programs: Basics of senior development, Complex skills development program, Musical methods in Senior Education, Intergenerational encounters and learning, Movement promotion through development of kinaesthetic perception. The Hungarian and German Methodolgical Handbook is gap-filling and useful directly for national experts and senior group leaders in each partner country. The English curricula is available for each partner organisation and for dissemination in European level.
The ageing population are growing social challenges in European countries. The fact that an increasing proportion of the population is over 65 years of age is a sign of the continuing ageing of the population. Among European countries, elderly people do not have enough opportunities to participate in social and cultural programs in Hungary and in Romania, which are beneficial for them in knowledge acquisition, health and mental status prevention, stabilization, or cultural, artistic development, and the broad variety of the senior developmental opportunities are unknown. Although, the west European partners have more opportunities in senior education, each organisation had developmental methodology that was new for the others in the partnership. Therefore, each partner could add and receive good practices in the training activities and via knowledge sharing with the methodological handbooks. The lack of descriptions of good practices evoked the need of methodological handbooks for senior groupleaders developed together in the project, which are good tools to extend the methodological alternatives and broaden the opportunities for senior education.