| | | ACC Bulletin No. 65
October 7th 2005
ACC International Programme Office
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Bridging Community Colleges II, Rites Tautskola (LV)
Exploring Borders of Identity, Fryske Folkshegeskoalle (NL)
Representations Community College (RCC), Zentrum für Erwachsenenbildung Stephansstift (D)
Release of the European Songbook
The Year of Citizenship through Education
From Wallström to Grundtvig
EUCIS membership
General Assembly 2005 (BE)
Cultures in Dialogue (D/DK)
Invitations received
Calendar
New Members
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Bridging Community Colleges II, Rites Tautskola (LV)
The BCC II took place from June 21st to June 28th 2005 at the Rites Tautskola, Rite, Jekabpils district, Latvia. 34 participants and trainers from Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Turkey and United Kingdom met to share ideas and experiences on how to organize a European Community College. The Rites Tautskola is a boarding school and so the BCC took place within the learning and living together frame of the European Community College idea.
The BCC II was planned recognizing the need for promoting non-formal education in common European context. It meant gathering educational materials, methods and ideas used and synthesizing the experience gained through organising European Community College courses in different countries around Europe by various non-govermental groups. The main object was to promote the European Community College format as an effective framework facilitating the creation of a sustainable European debate on issues of common concern thereby strengthening the European society, promoting active citizenship and creating the European public sphere.
Some of the topics adressed were: the concept of European Community Colleges, how to make a budget, how to finance an event, how to promote the European Community College format, practical tools for programming, methodology and Appreciative Inquiry. In workshops and plenary sessions ideas for future European Community Colleges were presented, discussed and evolved. Some projects had very concrete problems to work with during the week, others started as an idea during the week and were developed through feedback and discussions with fellow participants.
A draft was discussed for a set of guidelines on how to organize a European Community College. The edited guidelines will be published soonest.
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Exploring Borders of Identity, Fryske Folkshegeskoalle (NL)
Around 25 young people took part in this event at the Frisian Folk High School on Terschellingen (NL). Needless to say, it took place within the residential school format and has as usually served to promote this way forward for creating a European public sphere by creating living experiments
The aim of the project was to give the participants an opportunity to explore the sources and the nature of identity. Through being active together, playing togeher and living together the participants became aware of their own identity and that of others.The participants worked with the topic in workshops and actively communicated their thoughts to the local society through an art exhibition project.
The main operator of the event was the international committee of the Fryske Folkshegeskoalle including in the group our dedicated members Jort and Klaas Bijleveld. Together with the ACC Tautskolas Eiropai and Rites Tautskola in Latvia, the ACC has been a co-operator and has coordinated the ambition of holding this triangle-project of which the first one was in Latvia 2004. We expect the third part of the project to take place in Denmark in 2006 and hosted by the Danish participants.
A part from the local society guests, the Exploring Border of Identity -project engaged young people in the age of 16-18 years of age.
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Representations Community College (RCC), Zentrum für Erwachsenenbildung Stephansstift (D)
The ACC Berlin Committee managed to gather a group of 35 young people from all over Europe at the “Zentrum für Erwachsenenbildung Stephansstift” from August 14th – 26th. They were there to debate the issue of “political representation” as seen in an EU-context. The aim of the Representations Community College (RCC) was to let Europeans debate how to bridge the gap between those being represented and those who are representing in the EUropean political institutions.
Simulation games, presentations, contributions by external lecturers as well as the participants themselves made up the mixture of formal, non-formal and informal learning methods used. In Berlin the participants met with politicians during the visit to the Abgeordnetenhaus. In Berlin the participants also visited the office of the EU commision and the Reichstag. A simulation game put the participants in the shoes of the European heads of state, as they "played" EU summit and tried to come up with solutions to the current (apparently a) crisis in the EU. The simulation gave the participant a glimpse of the complexity of a decision making process. The experience of EUrope by playing a role-play simulation was organised by www.planspiel-politik.de A special task for the week was to compose a Code of Conduct for Members of the European Parliament. The participants worked with this in workshops and plenary sessions - it will be forwarded to politicians, opinion-makers and media all over Europe in order to create further awareness of EUropean political matters and the composite democracy that is the EU of today.
From the press relase:"It is not just the result the organizers want to promote by organizing the RCC, but also the process. It is no coincidence that the issues are going to be debated among Europeans instead of among nationals. “We believe the small-scale European public sphere we are establishing
by letting Europeans learn and live together here at Stephansstift could and should become a model for learning in a future EU,” explains organizer Erik Jengtes. “It is our ambition that some time in the future every European will have the chance to try what these young people are now trying: learning and living together for some time with people from all over Europe.” Previously the ACC has released the “Act on European Community Colleges” and concrete proposals for supporting measures within the EU. These proposals are now reflected in the EUCommission’s vice-president Margot Wallström’s so-called Plan D, released after the Dutch and French referenda. “Even if we have been proving our ideas by putting them into practice for many years now, and even if the ideas have been taken up by the EU-Commission, we believe there is still a need to create more concrete examples of how to make the EU work, more learning communities, many more events and small scale European public spheres within which European citizens have the chance to form common points of view. Many small streams make the river,” says organizer Anna Littke." http://www.acc.eu.org/SEEEMS/2846.asp
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Release of the European Songbook - 44 songs from all over Europe.
At the ACC General Assembly on September 24th was presented for the first time the European Songbook. The Songbook is due to hard work and a compilation made by Naomi Woltring and by the help of friends, family and associates all over Europe. About the background of the idea Naomi explains:"In 2003 I came to do my European Voluntary Service (EVS) at the office of the ACC in Denmark. The office was situated in a so-called folkehøjskole or folk high school. At folk high schools adults live and learn together under one roof: they learn from and with each other in both formal, non-formal and informal ways. Each morning at the morgensamling, the morning meeting, people give presentations and sing together. At my folk high school there was a singing session every Tuesday and Thursday evening as well [...] Until now there was no European songbook that could be used at European Community Colleges or at folk high school courses with a European focus. That is why I hope this songbook can begin to fill the gap. This book is a joint publication by the ACC and the Nivon Youth..." The compliation and work is a so-called "future capital" project made possible by EU-funding. The songbook is available through the ACC Office and on the website http://www.acc.eu.org/SEEEMS/1038.asp.
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The Year of Citizenship through Education
As 2005 is the Year of Citizenship through Education declared by the Council of Europe (CoE), the ACC has seen it as a good opportunity to present its concept of involving citizens of Europe on European wise relevant matters. The active citizenship ACC practices since 1999 has been presented first on the occasion of the "Launching Conference of the 2005 European Year of Citizenship through Education", Sofia, 13-14 December 2004, and has continued through participation of the ACC on forums where the aims of the "Year" are further elaborated. A forum of this kind was the Inter-Institutional meeting held in Strasbourg from 2-3 of June 2005. This was a meeting of associations, foundations and CoE bodies that are involved and deal with citizenship education and promotion of active citizenship. On this meeting the ACC established contacts and recieved information on the fields of work of the participating organizations as well as presented its particular concept of European Community Colleges. This was recieved with a lot of enthusiasm as a potential tool for involvement of citizens in Europe and as a tool for enhancing the debate among Europeans. Informed and engaged citizens in Europe are an ultimate goal of active citizenship and citizenship education. The ACC has been represented at the mentioned occasions by Mjellma Mehmeti. The "Year"' website www.coe.int/eyce contains all pertinent information and documents on the Year as well as a database of activities organised both by the Council of Europe and by the member states.
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From Wallströms to Grundtvig
In an "Action plan to improve communicating Europe by the Commission" launched by the vice-president Margot Wallström (MW) and approved by the Commission on July 20th there is mention of several interesting ideas. The "Action plan" has two parts of which first part has internal character and deals with strategies of the commissions' communication.
The second part describes the ambition to "draw up a white paper" that should "indicate ways to develop a European Public Sphere particularly through audiovisual media as well as a European narrative. The role of civil society and their active contribution to European dialogue and debate will also be addressed."
Even if a number of contradictions can be traced down already in this first indicative, it certainly gives reason to cautious positive expectactions. In particular, the ACC bears in mind what was quoted in Dagens Nyheter, when MW launched the so-called Plan D in June: “EU should and could support the building up of a pearl-chain of forums leading through Europe – a sort of Peoples Universities or Folk High Schools” (Dagens Nyheter, Sweden).
As late as yesterday, a debate meeting arranged by EU Civil Society Contact Group under the headline "An NGO brainstorming on the EU crisis" and with MW as a speaker, MW addressed the audience and invited to "“bring concrete proposals” because right now it is the “political momentum”, “we need to reach people, we need meeting places”.
As we do already have the "pearl chain" of forums/meeting places for European citizens, the know-how on staging European civil debate, and since it is born with a European civil society organisation, we in the ACC have reason to be optimist.
What could become even more promising is the programme-line "residential seminars" of the new generation of the Grundtvig programme. Fora, meeting places, european community college courses (?) that guarantee political debate among Europeans - in stead of among countrymen - seem to become an option. There will probably still be shortcomings of the programme-line, but lets work on making sense out of the options offered!
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EUCIS membership
On september 14th the ACC was approved associate of the "European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning" (EUCIS). EUCIS is conceived as a venue for exchanges, encounters, debates and a resource for proposals and the platform can also become a tool allowing citizens and the public at large to appropriate the notion of education and lifelong learning.
Members and founders are organisations like the European Association for Education of Adults (EAEA), European Forum for Vocational Education and Training (EfVET) , European Workers Education Association (EURO-WEA), European Vocational Training Association (EVTA) and SOLIDAR.
As partner of the Commission and particularly of the General Directorate of Education and Culture, the European Civil Society Platform on lifelong learning is there to pay particular attention that Education will not be subordinated to aims conceived exclusively in terms of employment rates and growth.
The EUCIS is currently elaborating a working plan.
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General Assembly 2005 (BE)
The ACC GA 2005 took place in Brussels. Please find the minutes in the ftp-server (ftp://member.acc.eu.org) and/or in the archive http://www.acc.eu.org/SEEEMS/213.asp New elected members of the board are Lucie Cizkova (Elsinore) and Elisabeth Alber (Turin/Brussels). One of the founders of the ACC, Eva Valvo, did not run for re-election and did then leave the board. Eva was greeted in absentia for her many years' volunteering for the ACC and for the great work she did. Let's repeat it in this Bulletin: thank you Eva!
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Cultures in Dialogue (D/DK)
The Cultures in Dialogue (CiD) is an association and a project. The association consists of its members, associations and schools in Denmark and Germany, who went together to carry out a European youth event - the structure is known from the Youth 2002 project/association, ACC was part of some years ago. The ACC has been involved in the Cultures in Dialogue as a consultant, since it was carried out in the well-known format of residential schools, and since one of the ambitions was similar to the ACC-ideas: it continued the endeavours of recent years among a range of European organizations to create living examples of smale-scale European public spheres.
CiD was organised as a European Youth Assembly in which almost 180 participants from 30 different states took part. CiD addressed how to safeguard and give recognition to the cultures and languages of national minorities in Europe. All kinds of European national, cultural and linguistic identities were present at the CiD 2005. Participants negotiations resulted in a CiD resolution on minority protection, see http://www.people.hojoster.dk/SEEEMS/3028.asp
As the CiD took place within the residential school format, the project is hopefully going to serve as well as an inspiration in the ongoing debate on the future political architecture of Europe. The schools that hosted the project were Jaruplund Hoejskole (D), Deutsche Nachschule Tingleff (DK) and the -for ACC many members - well known Hoejskolen Oestersoeen.
Several experienced ACC-members have been helping out in the ACC Office doing consultancy work, and a few ACC members even had the chance to participate in the Cultures in Dialogue event.
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Invitations received
A number of invitations are available from the http://public.acc.eu.org . Among recently received are:
Study session - "GenderEvolution" that will take place in the Euroepan Youth Center Budapest from 4th to 10th of December 2005
Summer school: Methods and Techniques in Political Science and Sociology, 7-18.08.2006 University of Ljubljana
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Calendar:
16/6 Prep meeting Exploring Borders of Identity, Egå, DK
21-28/6 Bridging Community College II, Rite, LV
25/6 Board meeting in Rite, LV
5/7 John Petersen presents the ACC to the students at Højskolen Østersøen, Aabenraa, DK
9/7 Prep. meeting Exploring Borders of Identity, Rite, LV
23/7 ACC Demos meeting at Højskolen Østersøen, DK
25/7 Mjellma Mehmeti presenting the ACC at Cultures in Dialogue, Højskolen Østersøen, DK
27/7 Mjellma Mehmeti presenting the ACC at Cultures in Dialogue, Deutsche Nachschule Tingleff (DK) and Jaruplund Højskole (D)
30/7-6/8 Exploring Borderes of Identity, Terschelling, NL
7/8 Tomas Balco and Malene Jepsen meeting in Århus (regio-project), DK
7/8 Tomas Balco visiting the ACC Office
14-26/8 Representations Community College, Hannover, D
19/8 John Petersen / Linda Jakobsone taking part in the board meeting of the Rites Tautskola, Båring Højskole, DK
21-26/8 Malene Jepsen taking part in the RCC, Hannover, D
30/8 John Petersen meeting Fritz v.Nordheim and Lissi Vilhelmsen at EU-Commission, Copenhagen
30-31/8 John Petersen meeting Lis Nielsen and Niels Bendix (Rites Tautskola), Copenhagen
4/9 Representations Community College follow up meeting, Reggello, I
7/9 General Assembly of ACC Latvia, Riga
14/9 Jan-Christoph Napierski at European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS)-meeting, Brussels
15-18/9: John Petersen attending UK/EU-presidency conference on adult education at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
21/9 John Petersen/Jan-Christoph Napierski meeting MEP Dan Jørgensen, Brussels
22/9 John Petersen meeting Artur Payer of the EAC (SECC III), Brussels
24/9 ACC oardmeeting, Brussels
24/9 ACC General Assembly, Brussels
25/9 ACC boarmeeting, Brussels
6/10 Elisabeth Alber attending conference, EU Civil Society Contact Group on "The future of Europe", Brussels
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With this a warm welcome to our new members:
Astrid Ranvig, Sorø
Andreja Korbar, Ljubljana Polje
Karolina Maria Gawron, Sieradz
Jana Tvrzova, Pribram;
Anja Vidmar, Ljubljana
Redha Abtouche, Tizi-ouzoul
Emmanouil Katantonakis, Athens
Dionysios Kokkaliaris, Athens
Lorenzo Dugulin, Trieste
Kamila Wislocka, Gliwice
Maria Stozek, Gliwice
Anna Willumsen, Sabro
Morten Tønning, Harlev J
Amerisa Kurbegovic, Nove Mesto
Andi Sallcini, Tirana
Ineta Moiseja, Riga
Narvina Sinani, Tirana
Marzio Valdambrini, Prato
Harun Karcic, Sarajevo
Bogdan-Ciprian Gavril, Pietra-Neamt
Ane Jalon, Andoain
Pavlina Soumrova, Sofia
Annamaria Csiszer, Battonya
Adam Tarr, Oroshása
Gleb Sotnikov, Kiev
Michal Resl, Bkov nad Jizerou
Ilya Shekshuyev, Kharkiv
Muiris Ó Fiannachta, Co.Chill Dara
Fotiny Christakoudy, Sofia
Amaia Saragueta Garrido, Ibarra
Anitra Graudina, Ogre
Anatoliy Sklyarov, Novomoskovsk
Dmitri Lecartev, Riscani
Andrej Kopusar, Lovrenc na Dr.p.
Goce Talevski, Skopje
Réka-Mária Fazakas, Miercurea-Ciuc
Núria Tello Clusella, Barcelona
Valeria Schirru, Lido di Ostia Roma
Rocío Rázquin Álvarez, Madrid
Angela Robinson, Bristol
Gesa Clausen, Tinglev
Eleonora Olaru, Chisinau
Stanimir Andonov, Sofia
Arantzazu Viteri, Arrasate
Olga Scerbacenko, Riga
Amelian Pastor, Timisoara
Jadwiga Sobczak, Warsaw
Arina Cretu, Chisinau
Vladimir Stefanovski, Bitola
Ondres Lochman, Mnichovo Hradiste
Arlind Dinollari, Tirana
Jan Frederik Holst, Hannover
Andrea Penna, Taranto
Dragos Corneliu Danau, Bucharest
Sebnem Yardimci, Ankara
Violaine Faubert, Le Raincy
Sevgi Donmez, Izmit/Kocaeli
Lisbeth Albinus, Aarhus
Armonia Pierantozzi, Rome
Elif Karacimen, Ankara
Oana Ligia Marginean, Sibiu
Mate Görgenyi, Miskolc
Linda Pallo, Riga
Irina Mariana Dragan, Bucharest
Katalin Dobo, Budapest
Agnieszka Pomaska, Gdansk
Davide Meinero, Entracque (Cn)
Jakub Kawulok, Hradek
Bartosz Limanowka, Szczesin
Iulia Vadeanu, Bucharest
Francesco Russo, Taranto
Jonas Holst Ladefoged, Harlev
Garba Diallo, Helsingør
Eamonn McEvoy, Dublin
Ilir Qorri, Tirane
Dan Zbuchea, Sebes jud. Alba
Ilga Vilcane, Varkava Preili district
Agnieszka Sochanska, Warsaw
Natalia Daria Jawornicka, Nowogród Bobrzanski
Özlem Tektas, Istanbul
Ulrika Boros, Budapest
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Sincerely,
John Petersen
ACC International Programme Office
Falstersgade 44, st., gaarden
DK-8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
0045 7363 0043 (ground)
0045 2425 3068 (mobile)
0045 7363 0023 (fax)
www.acc.eu.org
office@acc.eu.org
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