The “Celebrating Seasons” project has been funded (in 2014 and 2015) by the Grundtvig programme, which funds opportunities for adult education organisations, staff and learners. It is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning programme and had 2 key objectives:
A) to respond to the challenges of an ageing European population
B) to help provide adults with pathways to improve their knowledge and competences
What “Celebrating Seasons” is about
The “Celebrating Seasons” Project brings together a partnership of rurally based organisations from Cyprus, Germany, Iceland, Slovakia and the UK. Each of the partners shares a set of common issues in striving to “regenerate ” rural communities and economies. With fewer young people returning to rural areas after Higher Education, it is clear that we must empower older learners with the confidence to re-enter education, develop new skills and have access to the range of European opportunity and experience-sharing which is far more accessible to younger learners in formal education establishments.
As the name suggests, the “Celebrating Seasons” theme focuses on the ways in which we mark the passing of the year and celebrate the passing seasons all across Europe. This is a uniting theme, one that is accessible to all. Each of the adult learners will already have some knowledge of seasonal events, traditions and associated crafts/products in their own region. This is a chance for adult learners to see how others traditionally celebrate important changes in the year. The learners practice new craft skills associated with seasonal activity in the host country, share experience and knowledge of their own region and develop a greater appreciation of the place of their own cultural landscape within a broader European context. Celebrating Seasons aims to break down percieved barriers to re-entering education or pursuing further training.
The partnership created within this project has experience of working with adult learners in the rural environment, including specific disadvantaged groups, such as adults with learning difficulties, long term unemployment, women returning to education, immigrants and adults seeking to re-train.
Why “Celebrating Seasons” was developed
The “Celebrating Seasons” project was developed in a response to to a recognised need among the partners to share experience and best practice in providing informal learning experiences for adult learners in the rural environment. In particular, the projects seeks to provide a European perspective for adult learners from rurally isolated regions. Celebrating Seasons aims to break down percieved barriers to re-entering education or pursuing further training, as well as giving the participants an experience that is hoped will give them inspiration adn the confidence to pursue Further Education.
All the participants involved int he project will not only learn from their host country, but will also have the chance to host their fellow members of the group. It is hoped that through this, the participants will develop confidence in organisation and planning and should develop a greater sense of pride through sharing aspects of their own seasonally linked traditions with other countries. This will also be a confidence building experience and will serve to break down pre-conceptions that Europe is of no relevance to their own situations. Learners will have opportunity to share their own experiences of living in rural Europe and will come to realise that we all face common challenges in rural communities and economies.
For more information about what each country has planned, please select a link below to go to that country’s “Celebrating Seasons” webpage.
UK – Bonfire Night
The UK part of the project was hosted by Mark Graham of Grampus. We have an established wide network of European partners and have active cooperation with organisations in 15 European countries.
Grampus projects have always had a strong focus on rural issues and we have a strong local partnership. Our offices and training centre at Ashgill are regularly used as a venue for adult education activities. We run informal courses in a range of traditional skills and techniques including: traditional building techniques (wood, wattle and daub), Viking skills and activities, practical archaeology (excavation and survey) and textile techniques.
We are proud of links with the community and we are focused on addressing the needs of the community and cultural landscape in rural Cumbria.
Between 2006 and 2009 Grampus managed the Leonardo da Vinci Pilot Project ‘Unlocking Hidden Heritage’. Four of the five partners in this project were also partners in Unlocking. This project worked with ‘communities’ as a target group to develop curriculum and work with community groups to investigate regional traditional skills and re-establish a sense of ownership between local communities and their own cultural landscapes. The activities included surveying landscape features, developing skills associated with regional skills and crafts and restoring/reconstructing important landscape features.
Over the past three years Grampus have been a key partner in the UK Heritage Lottery funded ‘Bassenthwaite Reflections’ landscape partnership scheme. Our role was to work with local communities to provide informal learning and strengthen the connection with the landscape. We also run out of school clubs for three local schools to provide informal family learning through practical activities.
We have an established partnership with West House centre for people with learning difficulties and regularly host practical, informal learning workshops at Ashgill.
The season celebrated in Cumbria was Bonfire Night. Other activities during the action included visits to stone circles, a ghost hunt, watching the bonfire displays and having our own bonfire at our office, complete with apple bobbing, conkers, tasting preserves and pumpkin carving.
ICELAND – “Thorrablot” Festival
The Icelandic part of the “Celebrating Seasons” projet was hosted by Margret Hallmundsdottir who is with the Vestfjords Natural History Institute (NAVE). The purpose of NAVE is to research the nature fo the Vestfjords through studying the Biology, Environment research and Archaeology of the area and making the findings available to the public through their Education programme for adult learners. Their aim is to create jobs in this remote part of Iceland by helping to provide new opportunities in the Vestfjords area. The Institue is located in the small rural village of Bolungarvik in the West fjords of Iceland. Over the last 20 years, people have been moving away from the villages in the area, Most of this movement is the younger people leaving to enter Higher Education and not returning. The area also has poor transport links which leads to isolation. Changes in the fishing industry are contributing to a poor local economy.
The result of these problems is that the age of the remaining population is higher and the younger population do not get the chance to return as there is no work for them to return to. In order for the fishing industry to survive in these remote locations, immigrants have travelled to work in this area. This programme is aimed at the remaining and the immigrant populations of the area.
In February 2011, the participants of “Celebrating Seasons” went to Iceland and were welcomed by Margret and the Icelandic participants of the project. The celebration that the group were to take part in was the “Thorrablot” festival- the Viking Midwinter Festival. The group travelled visited places such as:
Heydalur, where the group learnt about the geology of the area and local stories and folklore.
Ísafjörður, which is the biggest town in the area, and Bolungarvík for a bit of exploring and visitng the Natural History Museum
Hólmavík village followed in the evening by Þorrablót (Thorrablot) back at Haydalur, which was the Viking themed food festival that included courses from all over Iceland, including shark.
CYPRUS – Easter
The Cypriot action was hosted by the Akrotiri Environmental Education and Information Centre (AEEIC), an organsiation which offers training and education to various groups all over Cyprus. The Centre is also part of the environmental education network of the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute Ministry of education.
The Centre is located in the village of Akrotiri which faces limited developmental opportunities due to the close proximity of military bases in the area. In an attempt to try and combat this, local people still practice traditional crafts, such as Basketry. However, these practices are declining as traditional materials are being replaced by synthetic materials. The survival of local wetlands and habitats so far have been down to people managing them for the traditional crafts and products, such as reed collection and grazing. If local traditions decline further, these local habitats will be under threat. In order to stop this happening, the Centre works with local people and organises training courses for them, as well as encouraging the locals to engage in all aspects of their work, with the aim of giving them the incentive to become involved and look after their natural habitats.
The theme for the action was Easter, with the group taking part in local celebrations and learning about local celebratory traditional produce.
GERMANY – “Walpurgis” Festival
The German action of “Celebrating Seasons” was hosted by Peter Kaiser for Bildungshaus Heideland Heimvolkshochschule im Landkreis Delitzsch e.V, which is an Adult Education organisation in the North West of Saxony providing Voctaional and non-formal education. They are part of the Junior Ranger network that deals with the young people in the Dübener Heide Region.
They run adult education prgrammes for Forest Management and Protected Landscape, using wild herbs for food and treatments and training in old crafts and local traditions as well as organising a series of local festivals in the Region like Holzskulpturensommer and Pechfest. For this, they contact and use a big range of local partners. They have participated in European exchange since 1997 andhost Leonardo da Vinci trainees and trainers, also culture groups from Belarus and the Ukraine and provide learning opportunities for them in the activities of the region.
In the Dübener Heide the population is decreasing as there are no good job opportunities for young people. The Region is not too far from prosperous regions like Halle and Leipzig but it is just too far to travel daily. The main demographic group leaving the region are qualified females as there are better career opportunities for them in cities. This will create big problems for our region in the future. Our programme will work mainly with women of the region seeking to re-enter education and who have little opportunity for European exchange. Our participants include farmers, unemployed, migrants from Russia and the handicap workshop in Torgau. They will all be fully engaged in organizing the Wallpurgisnacht action in Germany and will in turn participate in partner actions within this Grundtvig project.
In April, 4 UK participants went to Germany for a week to see the build up to the “Walpurgis” Festival. They were welcomed in Berlin by Peter, who took them on a tour around Berlin while waiting for the other participants to arrive. Once everyone was together, they were taken to the Dubener Heide area to start their week. Trips included visiting places such as
- Leipzig where the group were shown round St Nicholas and St Thomas Churches
- Gorschltz where the group learned about the last witchcraft in Saxony
- Torgau where the group got to take in the late gothic, baroque and renaissance architecture of the city.
SLOVAKIA – Rural Food
The Ipel Union was formed 17 years ago and is a not-for profit NGO. Their objectives include strengthening links between Hungary and Slovakia, preserving and revitalising the natural and cultural heritage of the Ipel River watershed area, supporting rural development and local community capacity building through education and training. All of their activities are focused on education, the environment, culture, capacity building, rural development and tourism. The Ipel Union also has a planning and managing role in the local RAMSAR site, which is a world recognised wetland. Past projects included an inventory of obsolete pesticide stocks in Slovakia and Hungary, with Dutch & British Government funding, as well as inventories of all-kinds of pollution sources in the Ipel watershed with EU Phare funding. The Ipel Union run an environmental training programme for people who are unemployed.
The Ipel Union works in a disadvantaged region having a peripheral character due to its location in the Slovak-Hungarian border region, which has been neglected for decades. This is why most of their target groups are in a disadvantaged position being members of groups at risk of social exclusion because of their ethnicity, being unemployed in long-term and having to live with the lack of opportunities. Participation in this project would be an invaluable experience for their adult learners and for thier organisation to share their experiences.
In August, 2 UK participants went to Slovakia to see the celebrations of the local harvests and experience local foods and traditionas associaited with them. The groups were taken to their accommodation just outside Sahy and met the other “Celebrating Seasons” participants there.
