Pobierz plik - Grundtvig

(The Society of the Free Polish University) from
Lublin and Helena Kretz’s Łódź University of the
Third Age.
We were invited to the project by its German
coordinator during the workshops ‘Sich Europa
erschließen – auf dem Weg zu einem vereinten
Europa‘, which took place in February 2004 in Bad
Urach.
Many older people have had tragic experiences
during World War II and as a result of the social
and political changes in Europe after the war. For
many of them peaceful cohabitation in Europe
and accepting cultural diversity and national differences
are an inner need. A great number of
people are curious of the world and show the
readiness to travel across Europe. For the past
few years, this has more and more concerned
travelling from east to west and vice versa. This
interest may be an important factor of expanding
the knowledge and understanding of relations
with European neighbours. However, partnership
meetings under a Grundtvig project, have a different
‘agenda from that of tourist trips.
The ‘ODE – Open Doors for Europe’ partnership
lasted for two years (2004-2006). Four partner
meetings were organised over that time. Two
of them were held in Poland; one in Lublin and in
Łódź. One more was organised in Ulm, Germany,
and one in Alicante, Spain. The aim of the project
was to facilitate mutual contacts and help senior
citizens from various European countries open
themselves to Europe. The experience related to
senior citizens’ education has shown that many
older people are anxious to participate in European
meetings and exchange programmes. This results
from their inability to speak foreign languages
or insufficient use of their skills, as well as from
the lack of experience in maintaining contacts
with other cultures and from belief that, during
meetings with European neighbours, there may
be misunderstanding or there may be no common
subjects for discussion, thus leading to unpleasant
situations. In order to prevent it, seniors’ discussions
on the following subjects were planned in
the project: key-words, taboos in individual countries,
everyday life situations, Christmas and Easter
traditions and other national holidays, debunking
stereotypes in partner countries, questions related
to the manners of eating and drinking.
The ODE project has been our first encounter
with the Grundtvig Programme. The beginnings
were very difficult. This was mostly due to a poor
knowledge of foreign languages and non-existent
computer skills. A 12-people group was formed
and gradually began to ‘open the doors to Europe’.
First of all, we were learning foreign languages
during intensive courses. All project participants
took an active part in preparing materials. Senior
citizens constitute a group with a limited number
of social contacts. Under the project, they had an
opportunity to use their competence and actively
join in developing information and promotion
materials, which contributed to conquering their
fear of travelling to other countries and restoring
their self-confidence. Thanks to extensive documentation
of the whole content of the project
(also uploaded on the website www.gemeinsamlernen.de/ode),
it was presented to a wider public
during local, regional and national seminars. The
presented elements included: project objectives,
partner organisations, working methods, course
of project implementation and its results, as well
as the activity of all the partners. This way, we
not only promoted the project itself, but also the
idea of cooperation of European organisations fo-
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