Global Citizenship Education aims to empower learners to engage behaviours and the mentality of being active citizens, locally and globally, creating a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world. Research into the topic of Global Citizenship Education in Rural Areas shows an increasing need of a new approach towards the tools and methodology of GCE due to the rapidly changing understanding of citizenship and shifting cultural diversity within the areas. Within this context, it is crucial to re-evaluate the current methodology and invest in the creation of new tools and approaches. Based on the investigation done during the implementation of the RURAL DEAR AGENDA project, carried out under the EYD 2015 framework, and on the analysis carried out in several rural areas around EU, it was found that the promotion of and the actions related to GCE are mainly done in urban areas by CSOs with a noted absence of policy implementation. While the policy framework exists for GCE in most countries, the actual implementation is complicated due to the sparsity of population in some regions and the engagement of the public within the field. In general, EU rural areas lack structured, non-isolated interconnected training on GCE issues. There are countless of teaching materials, but most of them have not been contextualized and updated, and of course not tailored to the rural environment. On the other hand, there is little knowledge of the cultural and rural reality of the migrant populations, their resources and potential, their socioeconomic aspects and the factors that determine them. There is limited access to positive educational materials supporting creativity and critical thinking. Therefore, this project aims to introduce outputs to motivate people to become active citizens of their communities and to branch out into the wider context. Following a participation-based process, the project aims to build on the existing teaching practices and improve the related tools, approaches and previous transnational practices to: -Provide better opportunities and materials to the educators that are implementing activities in this field of education in rural areas -Contribute towards an easier approach and reach of the process of citizens participation, specifically in rural areas within Europe. Furthermore, the project aims to tackle the issue of outdated GCE materials, by updating them, to suit the changing communities within the rural areas also considering the specific features of migrant populations within the regions as well as their resources and potential, their socioeconomic situation and their determining factors. Lastly, the project aims to tackle the lack of training and available materials for the people who aim to be the participants in the GCE trainer activities. The consortium partners will approach the idea of equipping educators with the right tools, drawing from the previous teaching materials as well as good practices from different rural areas internationally. The goal of the proposed approach is to fully exploit the advantages of online education methods and approaches, over other more “traditional” educational methodologies, and to make GCE-related education feasible and easily accessible to any interested individual involved in the sector. This will be realised with the support of personalised learning approaches and collaborative learning. The online tool aims to integrate distance-learning strategies, to deliver digital tools and professional development for tailormade and easy-to-follow courses with interesting assignments. Thus, the objectives of this project are: GENERAL OBJECTIVE: Promoting GCE in EU rural areas by developing innovative and ICT training material addressed to rural key agents. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: Developing and testing training material tailored to rural reality and addressed to rural key agents. Improve the knowledge and the professional skills of educators in rural areas with innovative tools and teaching methods. Provide opportunities for inclusive education. Promote media literacy, including digital consumer competences in rural areas as a sustainable learning tool for GCE. TARGETS NGO activists in rural areas Rural CSOs members Rural municipalities (staff and politicians Social educators Rural development agents Rural schools (teachers and staff)
As previously stated, the primary goals of this project were to provide innovative and ICT training materials tailored to rural realities and aimed at rural key agents. In this project by using innovative tools and teaching methods, educators in rural areas can improve their knowledge and professional skills, create opportunities for inclusive education, promote media literacy, including digital consumer competences, in rural areas as a long-term learning tool for GCE.
The project was created with the main aim to address the topic of Global Citizenship Education in the adult education sector and to reach people from rural areas of the consortium countries. The aim was to reassure equal access to knowledge related to common values and civic engagement in the European Community. During the project the needs analysis give us input on the Methodology and the context to be developed. The teaching units were defined according to the interest of the target groups (diversity and identity, Inequality and poverty, media literacy, sustainability and consumption, and community actions). The methodology was settled to include case studies and practical examples for educators to provide proof of their statements while teaching. Through the GCE Handbook and the Rural GCE Learning Motivation Environment, the consortium aimed at fully exploit the advantages of online education methods and approaches. The materials created support training in the GCE context through a platform with engaging content to go through the materials and test learners knowledge while validating the acquired knowledge through the GCE Open Badges provided while finalising the courses.