Your story: Making Lifelong Learning a Reality

2011 LLP Valorisation Conference, The Public, West Bromwich, 30 June 2011

Like many of the team I was involved in organising last week’s Valorisation Conference in West Bromwich. The event was hosted by Ecorys and the British Council and featured projects from across the Lifelong Learning Programme and Youth in Action.

The day got off to a lively start with presentations from Everything is Possible and some of their beneficiaries, followed by Derbyshire County Council with pupils from the Pingle School sharing their experience of a Comenius Regio project. Both groups did a fantastic job!

The rest of the morning was given over to discussions focusing on three themes: Inclusion, Innovation and Development which gave delegates the opportunity to share their experiences of being involved in the LLP and Youth in Action. I took part in some of the discussions on Inclusion. It was fantastic to hear so many inspiring stories as well as hearing directly from some of the programme beneficiaries about their experiences.

Moving around the groups I picked up on the successes and achievements from all kinds of different projects. There was a real sense of the impact that involvement in the LLP programmes has had on beneficiaries’ lives. The programmes were seen as a great way to encourage those with fewer opportunities to open their horizons and to actively direct their own learning.

Tom Jones from Cerebral Palsy Midlands was there with some of the beneficiaries of his Grundtvig Partnership project. He stressed the importance of safeguarding programmes which allow informal adult learning to take place and enable participants to be actively involved.

Many projects were providing great opportunities for beneficiaries to improve their skills and access jobs, helping not just young people but older people in need of upgrading their skills as well as those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Those that had taken part highlighted what they saw as some of the benefits of participation, things like increased confidence, focus and direction as well as practical or work-related skills. A key message was how empowering participating in European programmes can be: pushing boundaries, taking people out of their comfort zone and inspiring them to achieve more.

There were also plenty of recommendations on how to make the programmes even better in the future. Some of the common issues organisations and individuals face were around barriers to participation. Working with certain target groups, for example people who have recently left prison or single parents can pose unique challenges and ultimately means people who would benefit from taking part are excluded.

Gingerbread Northern Ireland work to tackle the issues facing one-parent families. They highlighted the need for the programmes to have more flexible measures in place to ensure they are truly inclusive to all.

Overall the consensus was that the Lifelong Learning Programme has an important role to play in helping organisations to support innovation, development and inclusion but that future programmes should be less complex, promote more cross-project/programme working and encourage better communication between education and the world of work. The future of the programmes (see our previous post on the next generation of programmes) was also discussed during the afternoon Question Time session, with representatives from the European Commission revealing details of what’s to come.

I came away feeling inspired by what our projects are managing to achieve and I’m sure there are lots more successes out there. If you would like to share your story, please comment – we’d love to hear from you! Or you can join in the discussions from the event on our forum at  http://yourstory2011.ning.com/

I’m Nicola Allan, project manager in the team at Ecorys – and this is my first post! I work in the project team that manages Partnerships, Preparatory Visits and Senior Volunteering projects. Look forward to hearing from you!