The objectives of the project were: 1. To collect and present innovative methods of working with adults (especially seniors), based on practical experiences of project partners in organising educational processes which not only give participants new competences but also empower them to introduce social change in their local communities (in accordance with the priority of common values, civic engagement and participation). 2. To raise the competencies of trainers / educators working with adults (especially with seniors) from the 6 participating countries in practical use of the methods collected by all the partners (in accordance with improving the competences of educators and other adult education staff). 3. To share with seniors and educators a range of tools, resources and good practices that can be helpful for those who want to try to implement such methods in their environment. 4. To inspire seniors from all participating countries to get involved in new initiatives and also to develop co-operation between senior organisations / communities across Europe. 5. To implement the collected methods in 6 countries and to collect good practices in activating and involving senior citizens in actions for community development.
We applied for this project because of common observations of seniors’ needs done by the project partners who have been working for many years with different groups of elderly people on an everyday basis. The visible needs and characteristics of senior citizens discussed by the partners and common for all the 6 countries (PL, BG, RS, CY, SI, IT) were the following: - Seniors from rural areas have lower access to public services (health, leisure, transportation etc.) and suffer more from isolation than those living in big cities; - Seniors (especially those from rural areas) often have low self-esteem, don’t believe in their own competences and feel excluded from the society (low digital skills often result in a feeling of “not keeping up” with the contemporary world); - Seniors often believe that their knowledge and skills are outdated (useless to young people), they are too old to learn anything new and too weak to change anything in their local community (nothing depends on them); - After 2 years of COVID-19 pandemic seniors are very keen to meet face to face and spend time outside, in the open air.