Socrates Programme: Grundtvig
Community Centres Promoting Sustainable Living
Ten years after the Rio Earth Summit, nations are still grappling with
the implementation of Local Agenda 21 possibly because not enough attention
was focused on the development of the human dimension, i.e., creating enough
consensus, developing the necessary skills and promoting participation
in decision-making fora to sustain the initiative.
The proposed three-year project will involve 13 project partners from
8 different European countries (Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Greece,
Italy, Scotland and Spain). It aims to initiate, in partner countries,
Community Centres that bring together the synergistic efforts and resources
of formal educational institutions, NGOs, local councils and adults to
promote sustainable living particularly in marginalized and disadvantaged
communities. This will be achieved by exploring specific community needs
and by helping community members to design programmes that respond to these
requirements.
The targeted communities include: elderly people, persons with disability,
minority ethnic groups, immigrants, Roma, persons in prison, persons in
a rehabilitation programme, the unemployed, economical refugees and economically
disadvantaged persons.
The project will initially establish a common research language and
define criteria for action by gathering research literature, examples of
good practice and field data. During the experimental stage, when pilot
Community Centres will be set up, a concurrent formative project evaluation
exercise will be launched. The project will document the experiences gathered,
relate them within a European context and widely disseminate guidelines
and training manuals for the setting up of similar Communities Centres
in other countries in the region providing a sound basis for a Grundtvig
4 network.
Project Director: Dr Paul Pace
Project Co-ordinator: Mr Vincent Caruana
Maltese Partners:
Environmental Education Unit, Faculty of Education, University of Malta
Friends of the Earth (Malta)