Our learners include those who are already responding to climate change (individuals / organisations) and those who are educated by us through awareness raising and wider public engagement. Having considered the opportunities and needs of educators, we set ourselves four strategic goals for this project: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURIAL AND COMMUNITY BASED EDUCATION: Increase capacity of our adult education programme to nurture transformative learning, to support learners to tackle climate change, social exclusion and various forms of disadvantage. LEARNING FOR PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION: Upskill our educators to boost the impact of their education programmes around pro-environmental civic initiatives. LEARNING FOR WELL-BEING AND PSYCHOSOCIAL RESILIENCE: Consolidate recommended and innovative pedagogical practices to improve the quality of learner-centred adult education, fostering active citizenship and meeting the needs of disadvantaged learners. OPPORTUNITIES TO BENEFIT FROM THE EXCHANGE OF BEST PRACTICE THROUGH EUROPEAN COOPERATION: Create new opportunities for European cooperation and best practice exchange with other education organisations.
Urgent action is needed for climate challenges, as highlighted in the ‘Europe 2020 Strategy: Executive Summary’. In the summary it particularly draws attention to the overuse of non-renewable sources of energies as both destabilising “our economic security and contributing to climate change.” These ongoing threats require community initiatives, social entrepreneurial engagement and civic participation to be at the heart of solutions. The economic impact of solutions, as well as social cohesion and inclusion, cannot be separated out from efforts to address environmental problems. Empowering communities to participate in building a safe, sustainable and inclusive future is at the heart of GAIA’s mission. With this project we saw a clear opportunity to build on our previous work across the country, in urban and rural areas. Since 2006 we have nurtured and grown a strong network of coordinators and educators rooted in communities. These networks urgently needed capacity building support to ensure they could respond effectively to emerging shifts in public narratives and social inclusion within their communities. By applying for this project we sought to strengthen the quality, impact and reach of our coordinators and educators.