Author: Martin Rejmíš

European Development Agency, s.r.o. arranged a study internship for students of secondary
vocational school from Poland. The internship took place from the end of April till the beginning of
May 2018 for a period of three weeks, which was mainly focused on practical training. This mobility
was carried out within the "Eurostażysta", within the Operational Programme Knowledge Education
Development, funded by the Operational Program for Knowledge Education Development (PO WER
2014-2020), which is in line with the Erasmus + rules.
16 students from the 3rd year of the school Zespól Szkól Technicznych from the town Suwalki took
part in the internship, accompanied by two teachers. The students were from the fields of
construction, electrical engineering, and renewable energy sources. During the internship, they were
in two of Prague's secondary schools, SPŠE V úžlabině and SPŠ stavební Josefa Gočára.
For the participants of the internship, a very interesting program was prepared, where besides day to
day lessons, leisure activities were also included. As a tour of Prague with a Polish guide and a trip to
Kutná Hora also with a Polish guide. During this trip, students had the opportunity not only to visit
the Constance and St. Barbara's Church, but also to explore the historic city.
Due to the excellent organization of the European Development Agency, the students have gained
many valuable experiences, as many students have been living abroad for the first time, where they
have come into contact with a foreign language, culture and the environment of a large city.
Students enjoyed their classes and their stay in Prague.
 

A lot has been already said about CREA.T.Y.V. project. This time we would like to share that on Moday 23rd April EUDA successfully finished the last intergenerational workshop.  The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin prepared a perfect manual which we followed during the four workshops. Thanks to well-structured instructions the participants experienced an entertaining and quite motivating workshops. The responses were positive with special emphasis on interactivity. We were happy to see that a lot of participants made new friends and that they established new friendships despite age differences.

At the beginning of February EUDA team composed of 3 mentors attended event “Train of Trainers” in Dublin. Cold but sunny weather in their free time didn´t stop them from sightseeing Dublin beauty such as Half Penny Bridge or legendary Temple Bar. Training lasted throughout the whole week and attenders from partner countries learned how to host and lead workshops. New experiences gained this week will be put in practice during pilot workshop in the Czech Republic.
There will be 4 workshops – motivational, inspirational, intergenerational and evaluating. Motivational workshop will be open for people in the age of 18-25, who face all sorts of life issues. Inspirational workshop will be only for volunteers among elderly citizens, who are enthusiastic and courageous enough to support youth in becoming independent. At the same time, elderly will encourage youngsters into volunteering and explain them that even a small step can change their lives. Afterwards intergenerational workshop will take place and both groups will meet each other and work on given tasks by EUDA mentors. The last but not the least evaluating workshop will happen. Participants interested in volunteering will be introduced to organizations working with volunteers and time for their feedback will be also included.

The 5th of December is a very special day for Czech childern and their parents. Every Czech household is visited by St. Nicholas with his companions, angel and devil, who reward the well-behaved kids and punish the mis-behaved ones.

However, there is something more about this day apart from the Czech custom. The 5th of December is the world’s International Volunteer Day and we would like to thank to all these people who devote their leisure time to volunteer duties. These people work for free to serve our society and to make the world a better place to live. Their volunteering activites may vary greatly, yet there is one common thing for them all – they ask nothing in exchange for their work and time.

EUDA participates in an Erasmus + project on volunteering and we know what it takes to be a volunteer. Therefore, we would like to thank you all and wish you a happy Volunteer Day!

Please read more about CREA.T.Y.V.

On Wednesday, November 15^th the EUDA team was glad to host the representatives of Easy School of Languages from Valletta, Malta. The seminar took place at Střední průmyslová škola in Prague, and welcomed some seventy-five enthusiastic teachers as participants.
After a brief introductory video showing the beauties of Malta and the advantages the Easy School of Languages provides, the representatives of the School, Ms. Galeann Barbara and Ms. Rita Ramelyte went on to describe the main features of their Institute, such as the pretty location, the comfortable accommodation options and, of course, the different types of English courses the School offers.
Among them, the most popular and the main topic of the seminar, was the Teacher Training course: the School works with teachers from various countries and different backgrounds to help them improve their language skills and the quality of English language teaching.
The presentation was very much appreciated by the participants, and the seminar continued with Mr. Martin Synkule explaining what EUDA can do for those interested in taking one of the courses presented, and how this fits in the framework of EUDA’s work within the Erasmus+ Program.
Finally, the Q&A session led to an enthusiastic debate among the participating teachers, who were able to further understand the structure of the courses, the functioning of Erasmus+ and the advantages that the Easy School of Languages and EUDA can provide.

During the days of Thursday and Friday, November 9-10^th 2017, the EUDA team took part in the second Partners’ Meeting for CREA.T.Y.V. – Creative Drama for Training Young Volunteers in Intergenerational Learning Environments, in Prague, Czech Republic.

The project, and the partners involved from Romania, Italy, Ireland and the Czech Republic, aims at fostering inclusive education of young people who live on the edge of the society.

After a brief catching-up session, followed by a welcoming introduction, the partners were able to evaluate their own work and progress thanks to the review of an internal evaluation questionnaire, and to further discuss possible improvements.

The main features of the project were discussed, such as the drafting of the E-Book that will ultimately describe an education program that will provide new learning opportunities in volunteering in an intergenerational mentoring approach through creative drama.

Later, the representatives of The Gaiety School of Acting presented the structure of the planned Workshops and introduced the pilot project.

After a quick lunch the partners went back to discuss the main details of CREA.T.Y.V., such as communication strategy, timetable and selection procedures.

Finally, the partners discussed the future planned mobilities and how to approach them.

Last but not least, all the partners decided to go for a walk to explore the beauties of Prague, and finalized the meeting with an authentic Czech dinner.

During the third week  of September the EUDA App Your School team took part in the second Learning Teaching Trainig Activity. The LTTA took place in Bologna, Italy. Teams from all eight participating countries gathered to present their Digital Atelier proposals, including some of the practical excercises. Further presentations and discussion concerned the Best practices in each of the countries. Participants were encouraged to share their national experiences and expertise which served as an inspiration for other partners. LTTA was organized and hosted by Zaffaria Centro A. Manzi. To read more about App Your School please see here.

VINA-Validating Informal and Non-Formal Acquired skills represents a partnership between 5 organizations from 5 EU member countries (Italy, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland and the United Kingdom) and it aims at promoting non-formal and informal education, as well as specific tools, in addition to growing awareness regarding recognizing the importance of informal and non-formal learning.
The project will provide information regarding how to access adult learning services. This purpose will be achieved by realizing a database that will evaluate and describe tools regarding informal and non-formal education. Also, the project will address the issue regarding the quality of the information.
Furthermore, VINA project wants to tackle and solve the following aspect: nowadays, an adult who is eager to validate the competences that he has acquired through non-formal and informal education encounters a range of problems because of the lack of access to appropriate tools. In other words, these tools exist, but they suffer from lack of possibility of implementation. With the aid of the VINA project, useful recommendations will be provided for users. Each partner organization from the 5 different countries will have a set of tasks and responsibilities to be achieved.
The target group of the project is represented by educators, lecturers and other users who need to update their skills in the field of informal and non-formal education, in order to meet the requirements for optimally working in the 21^st century.
At the kick-off meeting in Italy, the 5 partners discussed the VINA project in details, including actions on budget, dissemination, Database instrument and the ROTA validation analyser.
Main tasks and responsibilities of our company, European Development Agency, are:

• Coordinate internal and external evaluation of the project;
• Attend the foreseen transnational meetings (two people for each meeting);
• Support partners in the implementation of all the foreseen activities;
• Organise 1 multiplier event in Czech Republic.

It is our pleasure to announce that on the 29th May, the second national training for teachers involved in the App Your School project took part at ZUŠ Music Art in Prague. The main purpose of the training was to share more practical information about the project and the related activities. The participants received valuable information directly from the teachers who took part in the Bologna training in January 2017. They shared their experience, described the activities they had attended in Bologna and explained what they have learned there.

As part of the training, all 18 participants had the opportunity to try some tasks, specifically the so-called Tree. That means the participants were supposed to create a multiple portrayal of a tree with the use of different materials and techniques, for instance paper, wire or digital animation. At the end of the training, a discussion about the current state of art took place as the teachers from Arts School Music Art explained their lectures where they use ICT tools and support children’s creative thinking. Finally, the teachers had a brainstorming about the possible future Digital Atelier activities conducted within the project.