Where we come from

Adult learners weeks and learning festivals spread the value of learning and lead the way to concrete possibilities for taking part in learning. They help create networks and structures supportive of learning, and they provide input for needs-based and learner-centered educational policies and provision. Learning festivals can thus mobilize for immediate action and for strategic purposes. This potential has made them indispensable elements in any marketing strategy for lifelong learning.

Since the creation of the first adult learners week in 1992 by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) in the United Kingdom, almost forty countries around the world have established a learning festival — more than half of them in Europe. UNESCO (the United Nations specialized agency for education, science, culture and communication) launched International Adult Learners Week in 2000, thereby recognizing the importance of advocacy work for lifelong learning.

Who we are

In September 2003, the European Commission agreed to support International Adult Learners Week in Europe (IntALWinE) within the SOCRATES/Grundtvig-4 framework. IntALWinE is a Europe-wide network linking coordinators of national learning festivals in — finally — fifteen European countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. While Austria, struggling to maintain their learning festival in a fragile situation, has remained loosely connected to the network, Belgium (Flanders), no longer having a learning festival, completely dropped out of it. The three-year network project is coordinated by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) - formerly UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) - which is located in Hamburg, Germany.

What we wanted

The aim of IntALWinE has been to draw on and build up the strategic potential of learning festivals, with a view to developing a more consolidated European framework of cooperation. The cooperation was meant to lend support to national learning festivals. It was going to increase the technical skills of coordinators and facilitate the involvement of learners. It was going to produce and circulate materials, and to lend to the visibility and status of learning festivals in support of advocacy work for lifelong learning

What we have done

The network has concentrated its work on three interrelated areas, organized in thematic working groups: 1) bringing to the forefront the voices and perspectives of learners themselves, 2) improving the effectiveness of learning festivals, and 3) manifesting and maximizing the value of learning festivals as mobilization and advocacy tools for learning and democracy building. The working groups prepared concrete activities and outputs of the network:

Working Group 1

extracted and collected the experiences and aspirations of learners in the partner countries of the network. It organized an International Learners Forum and a Study Tour of International Learners, and coordinated the related publication on the “ I did it my way. Journeys of Learning in Europe.”

Working Group 2

concentrated on the operational improvement of learning festivals, identifying best practice, suggesting models for cooperation and developing methods for data collection and evaluation.

Working Group 3

finally, based on the work of the first two working groups and drawing on their results, employed a strategic perspective: it focused on the mobilization and advocacy potential of learning festivals for learning and democracy building. It has directly fed into the final publication, which will include the results of the working groups, country windows, voices of learners and policy recommendations.

Working meetings, study visits, communication by email and the working groups have formed the body of the network's activities. They have been complemented by the active participation of learners in the international learners' forum and study tour as well as by the learners' input for the evaluation of the network and the formulation of policy recommendations.