We wanted to enrich our adult education programmes and be designing and delivering programmes that are needs driven and adaptive, we feel that our team needs a richer capacity and experience of programme lifecycle management for adult education programmes with a particular focus on climate action and sustainability. The need to build capacity across the organisation is essential to not only deliver impactful programmes but to the succession and growth of the organisation. Competencies in this area include designing for value and needs of adult learners, participatory design methodologies, human centered design, adaptive programme management (either participatory with adult learners and using programme data to adapt for results) and effective evaluation and impact assessment. We often can see the tangible results when we are delivering programmes with adult learners, though the impact is often anecdotal. This expertise needs to be enhanced so we can demonstrate our impact better and learn from our experiences to adapt and provide value and needs driven programmes.
Global Action Plan (GAP) Ireland is undergoing a transformation in the past 5 years as programmes and as a result has shifted to new areas and the importance of climate action and sustainable living has heightened in Ireland as the urgency to mobilise climate action increases. The declaration of a climate emergency by the Irish government and the launch of a Climate Action Plan plus a fund to support action has shifted the attention towards direct action. This has required GAP to pivot with these changes, leverage its 18 years experience at delivering sustainability and climate action programmes for Adult learners and look at new and innovative ways to deliver to support its mission of creating sustainable communities throughout Ireland. As a result we needed to invest in our people and their competencies to support this transformation, so we can all grow together. We were aware of the rich experience of our european partners and of learning opportunities around Europe, so this funding opportunity was a suitable way to leverage this experience and achieve our developmental goals.