Based on these deliberations, reviews and research, we were able to clarify our goals and needs in the area of European mobility and cooperation as: 1) Enable our embedded educators to gain access to a set of skills and practices that would enhance their work in the three areas we have identified, namely: a. applying popular education methods for community empowerment b. working with issues of diversity and discrimination within learner communities themselves c. tools for teaching that can help sustain community initiatives which are adversely affected by burnout and other causes of drop-out. 2) To share these skills throughout the training pool to resource and strengthen the programme. 3) Bring best practices, as developed by CEA in Spain and amongst their European network, into Tripod.
For over 10 years, Tripod’s training work helping local communities find solutions to pressing issues related to xenophobia, migrant integration, poverty, homelessness and climate change, has brought us into close working relationships with numerous organizations and initiatives.This has given us important insights into the challenges local communities face and their need for forms of education that can help address them. We began the ‘Pool of Trainers’ programme in response to those needs. We found that our embedded community educators were struggling with three main areas: They wanted a better understanding of popular education methodologies and tools for applying that within a community empowerment setting; they needed improved competence to work with issues of diversity and discrimination as they show up within the learner communities themselves; and they needed tools for helping sustain community initiatives, where burnout and other causes of drop-out from participation were seen to be exacerbated by adverse conditions, such as poverty, housing precarity, and other marginalizing factors.Through research and inquiries we found CEA who was able to offer us set of trainings.