1. Workshop in Nyíregyháza, 22. to 24. March 2017
Representatives of all the European project partners met in Nyíregyháza (Hungary) from 22 to 24 March 2017 to attend the first Workshop of the ERASMUS+ “Silver Learners” project.
The workshop was organized by the City-Administration of Nyíregyháza. The main focus was on the competences and learning skills of elderly people and the resulting requirements on educational opportunities. What basic gerontological principles are available?
After welcoming words and an introduction of the workshop programme, the Council of Elders from Nyíregyháza, gave an advisory board, presented their work. The office helps the Municipality to support senior people. One aim of the project is to learn from each other and to adapt new initiatives. Accordingly the programme offered several opportunities the learn from partners and their experiences.
Prof. Imre Semsei, Dean of University of Debrecen, Faculty of Health, introduced the Academy of the Elderly in Eastern Hungary which is organized each year by the University. He also gave an overall view of gerontology and of the way the University tries to support senior citizens.
On the second day, Nyíregyháza presented the Sociological research about the city. After that, representatives from Cambridgeshire and Luxembourg introduced good-practice-examples of competence and learning in later life and shared their previous experiences.
A transnational working group from the participating project partners from Netherlands, Hungary and Germany assessed the workshop with a theoretical background about competences and learning in later life. Jumbo Klercq from the Netherlands held a presentation on the following topics:
- Theoretical background for learning in later life (different learning types)
- Competences of seniors
- Competences of teachers/tutors
- Examples of good practice
Then, four groups worked on the topics with leading questions:
- What type of elderly people do you work with?
- What's nice about it?
- What's difficult about that?
- What do they learn from you?
- What do you learn from them?
In the afternoon, concrete plans for the project were discussed in the project steering group.
The third day was intended to make the participants more familiar with Nyíregyháza. The hosts also provided further insights into the social-cultural structure against the background of demographic change. To clarify this, a city guide took the attending project partners on an informative tour of Nyíregyháza and explained the historical development of the town to them.
Documents:
- Introduction of Nyíregyháza
- Nyíregyháza: Senior Council
- Nyíregyháza: Sociological reserch
- Facts & Fiction - Assumption: learning is mainly a brain thing
- Catering for individual learning needs of heterogeneous older learners
- Learning in later life
- Learning in later life
- Active aging - academy of elderly
- Workshop-Results: “Competences and Learning in Later Life”