Life from Soil
Unipi Team Leader: Francesco Di Iacovo, Interdepartimental Centre for Agroenvironmental Research "Enrico Avanzi"
The "Life from Soil" project was a joint approach of 9 partners from 9 European countries. They wanted to promote local sustainability, rural communities and vulnerable target groups through tailored educational processes, open and tested. The partnership represents all geographical parts of the European Union and various non-formal and formal educators working in the agricultural, horticultural and environmental sectors. Their target groups range from youth, secondary school students and colleges through vulnerable groups of rural and urban populations as well as the unemployed, seniors, prisoners to their own employees and teachers, trainers, teachers involved in adult and youth education.
The overall objective of the project was to: Increase the skills and abilities of vulnerable groups of people to be self-dependent, employable, active and competitive in the pursuit of a lasting, fruitful and enriching life.
Specific objectives:
1) To increase the skills and abilities of trainers, teachers, trainees and representatives of local communities in formal and non-formal education.
2) Develop innovative learning and teaching tools that meet the overall goal and meet the needs of social entrepreneurs and students.
The consortium of the project consisted of a group of 4 non-governmental organisations (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, UK) and 2 Universities (Murcia, Pisa), a vocational school (Naklo, Slovenia) and two local action groups (LAGs) of LEADER initiative. Despite the differences and different practices in the process of adult and youth education, both the expert and management teams of the project found common ground and common procedures for implementing the activities. The excellent communication ability of all participants to communicate in English, as well as the skills necessary for the implementation of activities and managerial tasks, contributed to this.
The project was organized in work packages managed by various project partners. The project activities in these work packages were primarily focused on the design, preparation, testing and dissemination of learning tools (a best practice guide and a modular training course including demonstration test mobility for practical assessment of learning tools).
In order to share knowledge, develop skills and create twinning and lasting relationships, the project has organized three types of transnational learning / teaching activities:
a) based on an analysis of training needs of trainers and educators through on-site visits to the selected partner
(b) local training (mixed staff and beneficiaries) provided by qualified trainers of the partners
c) Qualified partners preparing specialised training for 3 demonstration and test sites (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary).
The project has organized 8 five-day training courses for partner staff and their target groups. All courses and seminars were professional and very well prepared with excellent referrals and evaluations of participants, three dissemination events and 5 multinational meetings, which besides management issues were also devoted to professional discussions for the preparation of intellectual outputs.
The project has organised various information dissemination platforms, including three dissemination actions (2 specific workshops for the dissemination of training tools in the framework of testing mobilities) and a final dissemination conference for dissemination and awareness raising.
The project has created 2 mental outputs: a good practice guide and a modular training course - a demonstration test for the practical evaluation of educational tools. The guide, which is available in 8 partner languages in electronic form, has received a great deal of appreciation and a keen interest in its use. It is available on the project portal, promoted through social networks and partners' websites, and on the VALOR platform. The modular training jury consists of 9 double-sided modules, available in the same platform as the handbook.
The sustainability of the project is ensured by an open platform for uploading of new best practices to the existing Guidebook as well as adding modular courses to an existing packages. There is is a strong interest among the partners for follow up activities. Currently, an investment project is being prepared, which, according to the model of Ryton Gardens, UK, will establish new therapeutic gardens in Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine. Among other things, participants of education and dissemination activities are more interested in cross-border co-operation in the field of self-sufficiency development and social enterprises and already started cooperation.
Coordinator: SOSNA (Slovakia)
Other participants:
UNIVERSITA DI PISA
FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA SAN ANTONIO (Spain)
Asociatia Agora Grup de Lucru pentru Dezvoltare Durabila (Romania)
Biotehniski center Naklo (Slovenia)
Inspi-Ráció Egyesület (Hungary)
Henry Doubleday Research Association (United Kingdom)
Pirkan Helmi ry (Finland)
Start date: 01-09-2015
End date: 31-08-2017
EU Grant: 223.807 €
Project website: http://life-from-soil.sosna.sk/
