The TAG project is carried out by an international and multispectral partnership of seven partners from Romania, Spain, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and France. This partnership was formed from the strong beliefs of partner organisations that education of older adults is of European relevance because it deals with an undeniable fact all around Europe: the population is aging but is not getting involved in LLL at a due pace or rate. In a rapidly changing world, older adults are forced into new and challenging environments which require new skills and attitudes which can only be gained through education and training. Despite the many efforts made by EU institutions to promote lifelong learning, there still exists a large share of the population, namely older adults, which is back behind. In this sense, adult education is of great importance to encourage the elder to be more active and participative in social and civic spheres. It is also of a remarkable relevance for adult educators to know their learners, their characteristics, needs, emotions, social position, style of learning, etc. Knowing what topics or issues are of their interest will be crucial towards engaging them in learning processes. It is well known that human nature tends to feel identified with communities and groups of people. We all tend to feel represented by a community and its culture; our values, beliefs and the manners in which we relate and interact with other define by the culture of our societies. Culture is an extensively wide concept in meaning, embedding an endless variety of areas: language, music, literature, religion, gastronomy… However, within this long list of cultural fields, gender tends to be forgotten. Gender issues are an integral part of our culture: people of a community, the way men and women understand gender and interact, their roles in the society… Hence, partners have seen the opportunity to take the advantage of gender issues as a triggering point and an untapping tool for the elder motivation to understand EU past, history and common values. If they find an interesting and shared reason for learning - that is understanding the role of important women throughout history - older people will be more engaged in LLL and active in their social circles. The project will use all this cultural background and legacy as a motor for both the professional competences development of adult educators and the boosting of older adults’ motivation to actively participate in LLL activities To address such issues, TAG partners have established the following objectives: - to enhance educators’ professional competences to work with older learners with the aim of motivating them to take a more active part in their communities and LLL activities; - to create safe learning spaces for older people taking the advantage of gender issues as a motivational trigger; - to raise awareness about belittled and invisible women by collecting stories of nationally outstanding female intellectuals and artists from the 20th century having a European dimension; - to generalise the understanding of gender issues through history as EU common values and community cultural heritage; - to create synergies among relevant actors in the educational and cultural fields and entities working with the elder. To achieve such objectives, partners will develop four main intellectual outputs: 1. Handbook-conceptual background: history of belittled and invisible women as a trigger for better understanding common EU values and promoting active participation of older people in LLL. 2. Blended Course targeting Adult Educators: ICT Tools for Older Men and Women. 3. Interactive EU Map «The making of a woman through history” created by working groups of older learners. 4. Digital Stories elaborated through Collaborative Storytelling with working groups of older learners. TAG project will target directly: · Adult educators: social workers, teachers, mentors, professors, etc. · Older learners, adults aged 55+ · Staff working in adult education contexts -formal, non-formal or informal organisations. Indirectly, the project will target other stakeholders, namely educational centers and organisations working in the field of adult education; public bodies active in the field, policy makers in the field of education and social and civic participation (public bodies staff, managers and heads of departments, etc.) A transversal approach to address such issues in cooperation among educational institutions and public bodies working with the elderly is essential to ensure the creation of safe and comfortable learning paths and boost their motivation and active participation in social and civic life. Similarly, the international and EU approach will guarantee that all target groups around Europe who are currently facing the above-mentioned challenges will benefit from project results and outcomes in the short and long term.
The main objectives of the project were: • to enhance the professional competences of educators to work with older learners in order to motivate them to participate more actively in their communities and LLL activities; • to create safe learning spaces for older people using gender-based content as a motivational factor; • to raise awareness about belittled and invisible women by collecting stories of nationally outstanding female intellectuals and artists throughout history until contemporary times and stressing their contribution to the European values dimension; • to generalize the understanding of gender issues through history and promote gender equality as a shared EU value and community cultural heritage; • to create synergies between relevant actors in the educational and cultural fields and other institutions working with older people.
The idea of applying for this project rose from the practical observations of older people and the way they relate with their communities, as they are often seen as a burden or as entities needing care from the outside and they often feel useless and helpless on the inside. The lack of deep understanding of their learning capital and personal resources – including their motivations for entering life-long learning programmes and their abilities to catch-up with technological and ICT trends – maintains the problem and prevents putting to good use their skills and competences. Moreover, older people are mostly considered as a whole, while the gender lens reveals quite important aspects to tackle in a different manner while addressing older learners and their empowerment. The main needs addressed by the project are: • promoting lifelong learning among older learners, as there are still many of them not included in such programmes; • challenges met by adult educators in discovering and developing new methods and techniques to motivate their learners to participate in LLL activities; • developing the adult educators’ capacity of exploring and promoting European values by designing and delivering educational programs incorporating age-based and gender-based content; • raising older people's awareness of gender issues; • older learners’ need of understanding of the EU past, history, common values and heritage; • older learners’ need of updating their ICT skills in order to feel better integrated into their community’s life.