Big PROMOCITI-Week in Barcelona

Five busy days lie behind the organizational group of the PROMOCITI project. At the beginning, the six project partners met to review the last months and to continue working concentrated on the study "Folk high schools and Active Citizenship in Europe". Future parts of the project were also designed and planned. In-depth insights into the exciting concept of "neighborhoods" in Barcelona could not be missed, of course. The group learned about the extraordinary concept of the Verneda Adult Education School (Escola d'Adults La Verneda-Sant Martí) - a great example of Active Citizenship in action: the Catalan neighborhood and active citizen run a school there, which is open to everyone. They also visited the Bon Pastor public library, which is also strongly connected to the people in its neighborhood. In addition, Rosa Cisneros introduced the partners via Zoom to Drom Kotar Mestipen, an association of Roma women for Roma women in Barcelona.

From Wednesday 09.-11. November 2022 the organizing team, led by Peter Jungmeier from SPES Zukunftsakademie, conducted the first train-the-trainer module in the project. The 16 participants from the five project countries dealt intensively with the topic of active citizenship, political foundations of engagement and the role of folk high schools regarding active citizenship. The good working atmosphere was the basis for deep discussions, which not only focused on active citizens, but also worked out what people need in a democracy in order to continue to strengthen it. One question that was raised, for example, was the possibility or impossibility of empowerment in digital space. At the end of the seminar, four working groups - so-called peer groups - were formed to jointly implement small projects in the folk high schools of the respective teachers. 

So we can be really curious about the many ways in which PROMOCITI will continue to spread!

As strong European partners we work together with the Federació d'Associacions Culturals i Educatives de Persones Adultes (FACEPA) from Barcelona (Spain), the folk high school Färnebo Folkhögskola from Österfärnebo (Sweden), the folk high school SPES Zukunftsakademie from Schlierbach (Austria) and the three associations of folk high schools from Austria, Poland and Germany, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bildungshäuser Österreich, Ogólnopolska Sieć Uniwersytetów Ludowych and Verband der Bildungszentren im ländlichen Raum.