ERASMUS + project Proposal   „Life from soil“

Call for partners!

Contact: Gejza Legen <gdlegen@gmail.com>

Idea:  Increase of skills and abilities of vulnerable groups of people to be self-dependent,  employable, active   and competitive in their effort – search for sustianable and fruitfull, rewarding life.

Rationale: The trans-national partnership aims to develop and test an innovative, needs tailored, inclusive learning process, based on the creation of activities among project partners and  target groups ( mayors of local municipalities unemployed and vulnerable adults and students) using social entreprices of organic farming and cultivation  in various EU countries, that would enable the development of a certified training course. The project also aims to create methodology, usable video tutors, teaching tools and demonstration activities in order to increase the skills and abilities both the learners and teachers – trainers and local mayors as well. This will enable to establish and run social agricultural entreprices in currently unused land and thus ecourage and create local jobs.

The project consortia focuses on training and education needs of the target groups  (trainers, teachers  active in non-formal and formal education, local mayors, vulnerable groups of people – unemployed, students,  dissadvanteged ethnic minorities, migrants as well as  educational organizations).

The project consortia partners have previous experiences of non-formal education in various  social environments in several European countries working in rural and urban conditions.  The selected target groups currently experience exclusion from labour market because of various complex determinants or, in case of mayors, experience lack of skills and knowledge how and why to establish and operate municipal or communicty based social agricultural entreprice.  Part of the target groups are low educated or lack skills to be employable in rapidly changing working environment.  Long term unemployment and rather formal and not efficient  help from national labour offices casued the loss of willingness to work or learn. The requalification courses often not reflect the labour market demand or does not provide real possibility to have a job and work or self maintaine yourself.  On the other side in countryside there is suitable land in owneship of municipalities or agricultural entreprices that can be used as testing ground and base for social entreprice.   The attractive, tailored  training course could increase the awarenerss of local mayors, change their attitude and help them to help the vulnerable and dissadvanted groups. In the same time improve the abilities and skills of unemployed and provide them real key skills and competences to recover their self-confidence and attitude towards work.

The students of high schools through advanced, attractive and inclusive trans-national learning process can obtain valuable incentives why to work in organic cultivation and agriculture which is nowadays one of the least attractive fields of job carrier and intriduce them to socially responsible entrepreneurship.  Besides that the students will develop their communication, social and language skills and flexibility to work in various sectors of society (cultivation, processing, marketing, trade and recycling).

The migrants and ethnic minorities through innovative and manual work based training courses will be more easily integrated and „melted“ into mainstream society and become a valuable and accepted members of the society.  The project for these groups will also delete or minimise the dependency on social aid systems and state social support and provide them an option to work in social rural entreprice.

The members and employees of organisations dealing with adult and youth non-formal education will acquire  new skills thanks to an exchange of best practices within the trans-national project consortia and personal interactions with group of other teachers and trainers. They will have a chance to work with various target groups (particualrly mayors of rural municipalities) and use or transfer the aquired skills and knowledge into their own practice.

Last but not least the project will help the Labour offices to provide offers for long term unemployed and registered unemployed people that work in urban and rural conditions and help them to find a job in rural social enterprise.

Project Objectives:

Overal Objective :  Increase the skills and abilities of vulnerable groups of people to be self-dependent,  employable, active and competitive in their effort – to have and live a sustianable, fruitfull and  rewarding life.

The project wants to use the widely avaliable resource that supports life in the Earth from very beginning of human society, the often neglected,  overlooked  and laid iddle  – the soil, to develop and test an innovative educational process based on the development and testing of social entreprice in cultivation fields using various agricultural and cultivation techniques, crops, products.  The project will primarily inform, motivate, encourage and train the local mayors to change their attitude and secondarily encourage and motivate vulnerable groups of society often excluded, and enable them to acquire elementary skills and advanced  experience in areas of communication, learning, rural and community development, self-dependency, self-esteem and dignity as well as manual skills in cultivation, food processing and preparation, energy saving, environment conservation, polution and also managerial ones  ( simple project preparation, management, accounting, monitoring and evaluation).  The project is based on inclusive, trans-national , best practice and cooperation enabling approach.

One of the priamry target groups of the project are mayors of rural muncipalitity who have an improtant task as „enablers“ and promoters of local employment.  Nowadays more and more local mayors with a clear vision try to use municpal companies and entreprices to employ the inhabitants in various municipal companies.

The project will  blend together stakeholders from various social groups and resorts – from formal education (high schools – students and teachers), non-formal education (environmental and rural NGOs and local communities) as well as local selfgovernments and state Labour offices together with target groups (unemployed, students, ethnic minorities and migrants). The project builds on previous trustfull good relations among project consortia partners and their common visions and missions  – to serve the communities and on multisectoral approach, dialogue and diversity of cultures and traditions.

Specific Objectives

  • Increase the skills and abilities of trainers, teachers, practicioners and representatives of local municipalities in areas of formal and non-formal education.

The project will enable to develop, share, test and disseminate efficient learning processess that originate in many countries of Europe. This will strengthen and enrich the knowledge base of participating educators (trainers, teachers, activists). The available best practices of project consortia partners will be assessed, modified , adapted and tested in partner countries. The training workshops will be true tools of inter-cultural dialogue and mutual learning, experience sharing to help the local mayors to establish and run social (cultivation or agriculture based) entreprices.  After the project termination the educators will  understand and be able to use the common methodologies and guidebooks and practices to improve the employment situation in countryside.

  • Develop innovative learning and teaching tools that will fulfill the overal objective and satisfy the needs of the trainers and learners in area of social entreprices

The collection of best practices,  methodologies from consortia partners and their environment will enable the educators (trainers, teachers, activists)  to develop an innovative methodological e-guidebook that will be put at disposal of various educators and local mayors. The English guidebook will be tested through demonstration activities (practical field work) and translated into languages of project consortia partners.  The dissemination for other educators and mayors will be done through dissemination events of the project and through the national channels of the partners.  The guidebook and its specific parts will be used during numerous training workshops in various locations of the partners.  The workshops will reflect the diversity of topics, techniques, target groups and locations. The project will be monitored and evaluated through its lifespan. A common evaluation tool will be developed to assess  the quality of results and  impact of the project  outputs and activities on learners.

  • Through effective trans-national and local communication and cooperation improve the accessibility and dissemination of innovative learning tools and techniques on social rural entreprices and job creation.

The project will develop its  multilingual webpage that will be a primary communciation tool. It will enable efficient internal communciation (partner section) and inform the target groups,  stakeholders, media and general public. A communication plan will be prepared and used for the communication during project implementation.  Besides that the project events, activities and outputs will be announced and diseminated through social media (particularly, Facebook and YouTube). This will be appropriate communication tool to keep contacts with students.  The project outputs will be disseminated trough several events (workshops, conferences) case by case in cooperation with national stakeholders. The cooperation among various formal and  non-formal education stakeholders  will enable to reach wide audience. The outputs used by the non-formal education stakeholders will be at disposal for teachers and students thus enlarging the range of  school curiculae.

Most outputs will be downloadable from project webpage and distributed through formal and un-formnal links and relations of the project staff.

Requirements and information:

Countries needed : 6-7 EU member states (plus UA if eligible) : SK, HU, Cz, GB, SLO, I, D, A, E, F,

Project partners :  8-10

Areas of interest:  organic farming, cultivation, bio-production, small scale food processing, herbiculture, permaculture,  community development, education,  wine production,  …

Requirements for potential partners :

  • PIC number (Registration through ECAS)
  • Partner description

PIC:

Full legal name (EN)

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Please briefly present your organisation (e.g. its type, size, scope of work, areas of specific expertise, specific social context and, if  relevant, the quality system used). (max 5000 characters) = 2 A4 pages Verdana 12 font size

What are the activities and experience of your organisation in the areas relevant for this project? What are the skills and/or expertise  of key persons involved in this project? (max 5000 characters)

Have you participated in a European Union granted project in the 3 years preceding this application?

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If the address is different then the organization  :

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Country:

Region: (NUTS 2 or 3):

POBox

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City

Website

E-mail
Phone

Mobile phone