The first strategic meeting of the Project ‘HEIM – HERITAGE IN MOTION: Innovative methodologies for adult education in cultural heritage and active ageing’ took place at the University of Alicante on 21st and 22nd November.
During two intense days, the project partners, led by the University of Alicante, addressed the project management criteria, its quality manual and the first research work. HEIM- HERITAGE IN MOTION 2018-1-ES01-KA204-050239 is a project from the Erasmus call, a Cooperation key action for Innovation and good practices exchange, between Strategic Partnerships of European institutions for Older Adults Training.
This is a Development and Innovation Project launched by the Permanent University as its coordinator that began on 01/11/2018 and will conclude on 31/10/2020. In addition to the UPUA, three other member institutions that also develop older adults training participate in the project: Pucko otvoreno uciliste Zagreb (Croatia); Towarzaystwo Demokratyczne Wschód (Poland); U3A Reykjavik (Iceland).
The project HEIM aims to foster heritage knowledge at a local and European level in order to promote among citizens the values inherent in cultural heritage and that make it an essential part of the European society development. Therefore, it reinforces the purpose of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (Decision (EU) 2017/864) of ‘encouraging as many people as possible to discover and explore the European cultural heritage, and reinforce a sense of belonging to the European family’.
This project will develop and put into practice innovative methods of adult teaching that value the experience and skills of this group, including constructive and cognitive methodologies: learning in context, inverted class, learning with projects and the use of ICT, because we think that open education and innovative practices in the digital age are essential in today's society. We therefore want to give older adults the opportunity to continue training throughout life in innovative environments, allowing them to be an active part of society to avoid their exclusion and to promote intergenerational cohesion, intercultural understanding and belonging to the community.
The project incorporates a series of phases and stages, which include early mapping, methodological guides design, routes design, and pilot in Heritage training. For that we will have researchers and trainers in each partner institution and groups of experts who will provide their approach to the different stages.
One of the essential tasks of the Project is to make our Heritage known (in each country of the project) and at the same time promote the inherent values in European cultural heritage on older adults, sharing, transmitting and discovering the common heritage that links us together, also making older adults cultural agents. For that purpose, the countries involved in HEIM should ‘strengthen links’, ‘research’, ‘analyse’, ‘recognise’ common cultural wealth and, in the end, value cultural diversity.