We All are Europe - AESAEC

Preface
This handbook is a result of the project Active European Seniors for Active European Citizenship
(www.aesaec.eu) that has been supported by the European Commission through the Grundtvig Action
(dealing with general adult learning) of the Lifelong Learning Programme
(http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/about_llp/about_llp_en.php).
The basic idea of this project was to link a target group with a target area and a target activity
which are usually not often linked to each other:
• our target group is senior citizens, aged around 60 year and over
• the target area is Active European Citizenship, in the sense of actively supporting the ideals
and values of the European Union and promoting knowledge of its policies, structures, citizens,
cultures etc. by feeling and understanding oneself as an active part of this process
• the target activity was European project management as a legal framework and as a source
of funding for such kind of activities.
The general aim of the project was to introduce the concept of European Citizenship to Europe’s
senior citizens and to make clear to them how they could personally benefit from active participation
with this concept. On the other hand, it is absolutely necessary for the European Union to involve
senior citizens more in its processes and concept development; only if the EU can manage to
be accepted and proactively supported by this extremely large group of citizens, with all its life
experience and knowhow, can a sustainable and positive development of a modern Europe at the
social, political, cultural, economic and ecological levels be expected. The EU programmes and
funds that we worked with in our project were understood as being one of the missing links between
the EU and its senior citizens as well as being perfect catalysts in bringing them closer to each other.
The main product of our project is a training course based on this handbook with two major parts:
• Part A contains three short chapters about pedagogic concepts and guidelines which might
be helpful when organising and implementing training courses for senior learners
• Part B has seven modules dealing with the European Union, the concept of Active European
Citizenship, the Senior Volunteering Programme, the Europe for Citizens Programme as
well as about how to design, structure, write, budget, submit and implement EU projects
under these programmes.
As said above, primarily our intention was to focus on senior citizens as learners, however during
the testing phases of this course, we realised that this handbook can be a very helpful source of
information and know-how for anybody interested in the EU, Active European Citizenship and EU
project management. So, please do consider that the content of this handbook is less age-oriented
as it was originally planned – which means it might be worth having a look at it regardless of the
date of birth stated in your passport.
We wish you an enjoyable, entertaining and sustainable learning experience.
The AESAEC project group
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