META Europe: Media training across Europe

Mary Dowson from Bradford Community Broadcasting received 2011 Grundtvig In-Service Training funding for her META Europe: Media training across Europe project.   The project is bringing together community media practitioners and adult educators from across Europe to reflect , learn and develop in all areas of media training.

Mary’s experience

My name is Mary Dowson and I am the Director of BCB Community Radio in Bradford, West Yorkshire.  In June 2011, I was fortunate enough to be part of a group of 15 people who came together from across the EU in the beautiful ‘pueblo blanco’ village of Algodonales in Andalusia, to take part in the META training course.

The beautiful 'pueblo blanco' village of Algodonales, Andalusia

There was a big representation from the UK and Germany, with others from Austria, Denmark, Ireland and Poland. The course was taught in English but was jointly tutored by an English and a German native speaker. Participants were mostly involved in community radio stations in their countries and had a variety of roles as paid staff, volunteers and trainers.

The course was a mixture of practical radio production skills and an exploration of how we, as adult educators, help others to learn – especially considering working with people who are not native speakers. It provided us with a great opportunity to work together in groups and to reflect on our own work and establish good practice in both creative radio production and our teaching.

Listen to Mary interview her fellow participants on their experience

The group got on really well together, and a great feeling of camaraderie amongst us developed over the week. We stayed in three different ‘hostals’ all close by to each other. As it was a small village we all tended to meet up and have our meals together at the local bars and cafes. The location of the course was really important. In a bigger town we would probably have scattered in the evenings which would have been a real shame because the very positive group identity developed as much in the evenings over a beer as during the days!

A positive and fulfilling experience

A member of the course, Giulia, recording in the village

It was a really positive and fulfilling experience, not just for me but I know for all other participants too. I described it as like being in a bubble – we were shed of responsibilities other than for our participation in the course and in our own learning, For most of us, this was a real luxury and allowed us to get the maximum benefit from the course. I had opportunity to reflect on my work in the context of a really interesting, creative group of people. It was such a supportive atmosphere and so conducive to people getting the most from the experience. Learning alongside people from other European countries, provided a richness to the whole experience and we have been in regular contact with each other ever since, building on the network that we established in Spain. Undoubtedly future collaboration will happen as a result of this In-Service Training funding.

How you can get involved

Grundtvig In-Service Training enables adult education staff to participate in work-related training courses. There are hundreds of themed courses available, across more than 30 European countries.  If this sounds like your type of thing why not find out more: www.grundtvig.org.uk/inservicetraining

Apply before the 16 January 2012 for a training course betweeen the 1 April and 31 August 2012.