GIE - The Group for European Integration

PEOPLES AND RELIGIONS

Title: Peoples and Religions
Acronym: None
Project type : SOCRATES/Grundtvig 2
Ref. no.: 03-G2-102-AG-IT
Promoter: Group for European Integration
Coordinator: Region Abruzzo , Italy
Duration: 1 year
Actual stage: finished
Total value of the Contract for Group for European Integration: 5,461 EUR

Summary:

Aims - The overall goal of the project is to initiate, in each participating country “Reading Centres that bring together the synergistic efforts of formal educational Institutions, Associations, local councils, citizens, to promote reflexion and exchange of knowledge by:
- identifying the local problems that are relevant to the community, understanding their various aspects, and exploring useful methods for solving them
- organising, developing and disseminating adult education programmes aimed at empowering citizens with knowledge, skills and attitudes required to exercise active citizenship and become active decision makers on issues concerning peaceful integration and tolerance
- organising, in co-operation with the partners, seminars and reading sessions for a wider public
- selecting and collecting books and publications on the field
- making research about the local cultural heritage and that of the partner's countries
- analysis of the local situation about the presence of intolerance toward the newly arrived people due to different religious traditions (immigrants) involving them actively in the project
- documenting the development of the activities in order to prepare a handbook of good practices that could be used by other communities.

Furthermore each partner initiates contacts and the needed procedures to make these Centres self-sufficient and permanent.

The promotion of lifelong learning and the building up of a Europe of Knowledge, irrespective of age or place, is important not only for improving, acquiring or up-dating the general skills in order to get a job in a world in which it is necessary to adapt to continuous changes. It is very important also for increasing the capacity to play a full and active role in society and develop intercultural awareness in order to break any kind of barriers. Especially the elderly, with their experience of war, destruction, intolerance and also of reconstruction, want to invest in their own personal and social development in order to behave as active citizens and feel part of the democratic process.

The recent events ( Twin Towers , terrorism, etc.) put evidence to the fact that much must be done for a peaceful reflection on the cultural heritage of people that is deeply connected with the religious roots and inspires style of life and behaviour and infers the decisions.

It is very important now to provide a powerful reflection on local, regional, national and global context in which we all live. Increasingly the society, even restricted communities, become multicultural and needs models of peaceful cohesion and social integration.

The White Paper on Education and Training demand for education which promotes "observation, common sense, curiosity, interest in the physical and social world around us and the desire to experiment" together with recalling and understanding the past" and "presenting the world not as a completed construction but something to be constructed" recognising that there is a need to have "permanent and broad access to a number of different form of knowledge", particularly for disadvantaged groups. It also asserts that social integration is best achieved through sharing common values, passing on cultural heritage and teaching self-reliance and recognises that people are confronted with "increasing variety of physical objects, social situation and geographical and cultural contexts.

Facilitating the interpretation of these contexts, situations and objects is then a priority in the process of helping people to become fully-integrated member of society.

The proposed Centres will provide a "locus" where people engage with their own experience and with that of others and understand and celebrate the diversity of cultures whilst at the same time searching for and endorsing those cultural values which bring peoples together

Partnership:

1. Region Abruzzo - IT (Coordinator)
2. Superior Institute of Religious Sciences - IT
3. Universita  Praze Provozn ekonomick fakulta CZ
4. Group for European Integration - RO
5. Academy of Humanities and Economics Lodz - PL
6. Edinburgh 's Telford College - UK
7. Concept Foundation - RO
8. Catalactica Association - RO
9. Technical and Vocational School - HU

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