Danube Networkers Overview

The Grundtvig Learning Partnership Danube Stories (August 2011 - July 2013) focuses on the development and application of innovative approaches to oral history work with older people (55+) in the Danube Region. These approaches should encourage creative expression of thoughts and feelings in subject areas that have to do with the participants' living environment, history and cultural identity. They should provide people of different nationalities, education backgrounds, gender, with opportunities as well as tools for documenting and communicating their memories and experiences and make these available to others.

Through new forms of activating lifelong learning the project aims at empowering older citizens for participation in the development of the Danube Region so that they understand the chances and the risks in the current developments, articulate their interests and define together the possibilities for action and for future perspectives of their Region.

Actions include education via lectures on selected subjects that concern the future of the Danube Region, subsequent discussion of these subjects in national face-to face and virtual citizens’ panels, and a transnational face-to-face citizen’s panel in Croatia in june 2011. The project will be closed in november by a seminar and conference meeting with European Parlamentariens in Strasbourg.

In this project, following the analysis and discussion of good practices of academically-oriented continuing education for older adults, concepts for education programs in own national and institutional contexts and situations will be developed and tested by the partners at Universities and NGOs in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia.

The education programs in the area of politics, social and cultural studies should foster understanding of political themes and social transformation in the context of the Danube Strategy of the European Commission, strengthen preparedness for political and social cooperation and participation and encourage older people to commit themselves to others and to society in their own region and in Europe.

In today's society it is no longer unusual for women to become over 80 years old. These women look back on long periods of dedication to professional and domestic activities. What do we know about women aged 70+ that shape their lives with outstanding courage and social engagement? Which decisive turning-points and challenges like illness, loss of partners or children financial constraints did they have to master? Which professional, social and other activities did they take up and how do they perceive their aging? These questions will be asked by groups of women 50+, reflecting at the same time on their own life experiences.

In the framework of the Grundtvig-Program “Senior Volunteering Project” (SVP)  an first exchange along the Danube  is realised through the co-operation of ZAWiW/ViLE e.V. and the University of the Third Age  at the University Bratislava, in which four senior volunteers are spending three weeks in the partner country in order to participate in voluntary initiatives

The goal of the learning partnership "Danube Networkers" was to create through joint activities of older adults from the neighbouring states along the river Danube an intercultural network of older adults and to make them into networkers in the way of the European idea. The learning partnership made civil participation and determination processes possible, it opened them to this target group. The partnership acted in a parallel way to the contacts created in the area of economy and culture (Danube offices) along the Danube and provided foundations for a larger European "Danube Networkers" project. In the sense of activating seniors'education, seniors'groups developed in the participating organisations worked together on jointly selected themes about the river Danube.

From the 7th to the 12th of July 2008, in the context of the International Danube Festival Ulm, a seminar with the title "Home country - Danube country" took place in which seniors from the various countries along the Danube had met for the first time. The seminar had been organised by the "Zentrum für Allgemeine Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung (ZAWiW) der Universität Ulm" and the seniors' working group Europakontakte at ZAWiW in cooperation with the Association ViLE e.V. and other cooperation partners.

The goal of the seminar was to develop basis for a long-term thematic cooperation between seniors' groups along the Danube in the way of a social network. Each delegation consisted of one person in charge in adult education and three seniors with facilitator functions.

The main goal of this workshop on November 27th - December 4th, 2011 is to make the use of the Internet and new media in seniors’ education perceptible on the level of the learners. The participants will gain an insight into the use of new media, especially virtual, interactive tools (such as Skype, Video conferencing, blogs, and virtual interaction). Furthermore, the areas of use will be illustrated by good practice examples on location and in European co-operations.

Target Group: Adult learners 50+