TRASNATIONAL MEETINGS

All meetings of the partnership have been prepared to provide a balance between exchange of practise (& ideas), effective project management & provision of managerial skills
training through a series of workshops.
The partnership will organise 3 transnational project meetings. All the transnational project meetings (TPM) will involve all the partner organisations and will be
addressed to monitoring the project implementation and in setting up all the aspects and guidance for the implementation stage and development of products.
The TPMs, occurring & each with 2 key aspects:
* A specific theme (outcomes related) & focus.
* A managerial purpose: each partner will:
- Present/update their community activity/background,
- Review current challenges together,
- Plan/Report on various local initiatives,
- Prepare/present best practice examples,
- Plan/Report practical examples for all other organizations participating.
The project requires direct contact with local contexts, approaches, and plans for the creative activities. Each transnational project meeting agenda will include 2 aspects.

First aspect:
Where appropriate, organizing local examples, best practices, small-scale events, meetings with relevant stakeholders, or various ranges of beneficiaries will be considered.
Second aspect: Project development/skill training.
Each TPM will provide a workshop activity supportive of the aims & that focuses on ‘results’ related issues covered & that is not the main focus of work in the LL

KICK OFF MEETING

Maggie Tarasiuk Poland

INTERVIEW WITH PROJECT COORDINATOR

What a challenging and fascinating title, can you share with us its objectives?

The main topic of the project is the meaning of art and its impact on human life. Discovering the beauty and art in life allows people to fully discover the value and purpose of life. The project will show the way how to discover the beauty of everyday life and will help to understand the origin of European culture.

How is the European Commission supporting these opportunities?

We chose the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for the adult education programme since it is promoting Transnational Strategic Partnerships aimed to develop initiatives addressing education training and youth and promoting innovation, exchange of experience and know-how. We are really enthusiastic and thrilled about this possibility our project will last two years and gather 5 organizations from Greece, Italy, Poland, The UK and Turkey.

Do you have a specific target group?

We want to focus on disadvantaged adults learners – people facing educational difficulties, social obstacles, cultural differences and economic obstacles, and teachers/tutors.

What do you plan to do?

Project activities mainly focus on enhancing the cultural awareness of adult learners and promoting attitudes of tolerance, understanding and openness through education on European cultural heritage. The project creates structure and activities that encourage social cohesion, bringing opportunities for personal development and well-being.

New learning opportunities (traditional and online) for adult learners will be offered – cultural, motivation and theatre workshops with the support of IT tools.

For adult learners, this project will be a chance to get a new learning experience and for teachers, it will be a way to develop their own skills and methods of teaching adults. Both staff and learners will have an opportunity to rethink their attitudes and reduce their prejudices through European cooperation.

Concretely what are the specific project objectives?

increase adult learners' cultural awareness,
increase adult learners IT skills,
increase adult learners' creativity,
develop adult learners' key competencies,
develop innovative teaching adults methods,
integrate traditional and distance learning

First transnational project training meeting London 28-29 April 2022

This 2 days project meeting was held at Berrymede Junior School and aimed at preparing the learning activities which will take place in Greece, Italy and Turkey. The UK contribution to The Living Art/Art of Living Project based at the aforementioned School, involved another partner ARTification, a long-established local community arts-based organisation. A series of activities and preparations had been carried out with the intention of opening a “wellness centre” for parents, teachers and students at the school.

ARTification will take over the development & management of the wellness centre initiative, with its history of creative projects over the past few decades.

The plan is to open a centre that offers services around these headings: Mental -Village in the City Group,

Physical - Exercise and Fitness classes Social – Village in the City Group

Financial - advice from financial advisors at Armenian Centre Spiritual – Discussion groups

Environmental – Continuation of Harmony Project Vocational – Art, Photography, Filmmaking

The ‘Village in the City’ idea, is an important component of the Wellness Centre. It was set up during the pandemic by Dr Mark McKergow, based in Scotland. As the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ emerges and develops, the usefulness and resilience of very local connections have become increasingly clear. The levels of local can be seen as houses; streets; villages; towns; districts; city. The potential for connection at the village level – even in much bigger settlements like towns and cities – is clear. Architect Richard Rogers (2017) identified over 620 ‘High Streets’ in London alone, each of which is central to its own village.

Village-level activity can:

Improve all our lives in the short and long term. Building and participating in an active community are positive experiences.

Build inclusive cross-generational & cross-demographic communities to expand our awareness of the world Build resilience and mutual support with people.

Connect businesses, families, support groups, religious groups, secular groups & everyone else with an identity and local participation.

·As a necessary counterbalance to the recent developments in online communication.

Help people become more empowered and purposefully connected than they have been in recent years.

Second transnational project training meeting Syros 24-28 June 2022

This 5 days project meeting was held in Syros island which "in se" is a laboratory of art and inclusion. The agenda was quite full and included a traditional dance festival, visits to an experimental elementary school, group activities, workshops, drama and theatre techniques for effective adult education, and environmental activities. The valorization of local traditions was enhanced in the Social Cooperative of Cyclades in Kepos- Manna village, with food the farm prepared by the members.

General picture:

Ermoupolis is the capital of the Cyclades and the capital of Syros Island as well. Syros is also the administrative center of one of the thirteen regions of Greece, the Region of the Southern Aegean Sea. The island covers an area of 84 km2 and has around 22000 inhabitants. The history of Syros is as old as the prehistoric period. Findings of a prehistoric settlement in the North part of the island dating back to 2700- 2200 BC, show that not only was Syros inhabited, but it also was the center of one of the phases of the First Cycladic Civilization. Findings also suggest that Syros had developed trade and was connected to various other islands, as well as to the mainland.

Among the cultural study visits, let's focus on the example of a non profit organisation in Ermoupolis called litteraly "strings and pipes". The organisation also pays a tribute to the patriarch of rebetiko music, Markos Vamvakaris born in Syros. ΕΝ ΧΟΡΔΑΙΣ & ΟΡΓΑΝΟΙΣ aims to highlight and preserve the cultural heritage of rebetiko music, in response to a wishful thought aired by the composer Stavros Xarhakos in the summer of 2016, during an event of the Syros Choral Association in his honour. The participation in this event of a children’s musical ensemble -“The Secret Bouzouki” added to the Maestro’s initiative a further incentive for the founding of the School. Stavros Xarhakos valued the folk and Byzantine music teachers who undertook to teach at the School.

The aim of this practice is to highlight and preserve the cultural heritage of rebetiko music.

The ultimate vision of ΕΝ ΧΟΡΔΑΙΣ & ΟΡΓΑΝΟΙΣ is the gradual development of the School into a musical culture hub: the creation of an exemplary infrastructure (cutting-edge acoustic technologies, state-of-the-art classrooms, auditoriums, the opportunity to host young musicians as interns from Greece and internationally), which will serve as a reference point and will highlight the folk and traditional music of Greece. In this way, an international spotlight of cultural attraction can be created in Syros, linking scholars to music universities and to the wider music community.

Another experience is related to the traditional dance festival called "Syrianopato". In that context the folklore - Dance Group "the wisdom of tradition", provides an open invitation to participate in a cultural 4-day event full of dance, music and love for tradition in the cosmopolitan "Queen of the Cyclades» Syros Island.

Syros Meeting- the Team

Third transnational training partner meeting Treviso 10-15 February 2023

This 5 days project meeting will be held in Venice and Treviso. the days in Treviso will be hosted by ISRAA (Istituto per Servizi di Ricovero e Assistenza agli Anziani) in FABER Europa member of the ENSA network.

VIA QUERINISSIMA

by Antonio Franzina, Head, Press Office Veneto Regional Council

Via Querinissima aspires to trace the route travelled by Pietro Querini by sea and land to promote a slow, conscious, sustainable, inclusive, food and wine cultural tourism and aims to obtain Council of Europe certification as an international cultural route in 2023.

Via Querinissima, from myth to history is an international non-profit cultural association that was formally established last June, after a process that began ten years ago with a bilateral friendship agreement between the Municipality of Røst (Norway) and the Municipality of Sandrigo (Vicenza, Italy), which was followed by a bilateral agreement for cultural and economic cooperation between the Region of Nordland (Norway) and the Veneto Region (Italy). The starting point for this dialogue, which was gradually extended over time to other European countries, was the voyage of Venetian nobleman and merchant Pietro Querini, who was shipwrecked and returned home unhoped for, in a rather fortunate manner, between the Mediterranean and the North Seas between 1431 and 1432.

Key points of the Querinissima:

It links different peoples and cultures, from the Latin-Mediterranean sphere (Greece-Italy-Spain-Portugal) to the Scandinavian-Baltic sphere, passing through German, English, Flemish and Swiss culture.

It is the first European cultural itinerary that also includes a maritime route and thus revives the culture of the sea and peripheral maritime regions

Historically, it is characterised by a strong sense of solidarity and hospitality and is attested by autograph texts, starting with the diary of Pietro Querini kept in the Vatican Codex 5659 in the Vatican Library, as well as Frà Mauro's splendid Map of the World, commissioned in the mid-15th century by the Portuguese crown and now kept in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, in which we have the first cartographic description of the Scandinavian area

For the Council of Europe, cultural itineraries are a tool to demonstrate, through transversal and transnational routes, that the cultural heritage of different countries is actually a common heritage. They are, therefore, primarily a vehicle for communication and exchange between nations and cultures, i.e. a tool for consolidating European identity, a virtuous process of democratic re-appropriation of one's own being as a community (Becker Steinecke, 1993).

Empowerment and inclusion of young people and their families in situation of psychological distress.

Pasquale Borsellino Veneto Region, social services

Recently, the Veneto Region launched a new service to be implemented locally in cooperation with the Local Social Health Units, called “Teenage District Functional Unit - UFDA" UDFA is made by a territorial team of experts for the multidisciplinary care of young people and families suffering depression due to the effects of the containment measures of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the spread of the infection and the introduction of measures to prevent it, young people were the first to experience the consequences of social distancing and other measures in the school context.

The pandemic had a heavy psychological impact on children, adolescents and families in terms of restrictions and radical changes in habits. In particular, according to a recent study by the Giannina Gaslini Institute in Genoa, in children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 18. The most frequent symptoms included increased emotional instability with irritability and changes in mood, sleep and anxiety disorders. As stress symptoms caused by Covid-19 in parents increase, behavioural disorders in children and teenagers raise up as well.

To cope with this difficult situation and provide support to children and their families, the Veneto Region in collaboration with the Social Services Unit of Family, Minors, Young People and Civil Service approved Resolution no. 1215/2001 of 07/09/2021, which establishes the guidelines for the nine Local Social Health Units of the Region in order to implement UFDA experts’ groups, including psychologists, social workers and professional educators.

These multi-disciplinary working groups are open and available to offer counselling and takeover to adolescents and their families on the various possible mental disorders and/or disturbances related to the pandemic. The proposal, which pursues an approach to the person and not to her/his symptoms or state of need, and which favours an early interception of distress and the taking into account of different levels of intensity, is part of a broader context linked to regional programming on the subject. UFDA will allow adequate responses and will lead, in the three-year period 2021-2023, to the achievement of an ad hoc service.

The UFDA experience has been selected as an example of good practice for the project “The living art-The art of living” since it develops a process of multidisciplinary care of young people and their families in a situation of psychological distress enabling the promotion of individual and collective psychological well-being. The concept of the “art of living” is enhanced by managing a situation of psychological distress through rediscovering the value, beauty and purpose of life