Minutes of the 4th Project Meeting

Date: 24^th October- 28^th October 2012

Location: Barcelona , Spain

Participants, 43 people representing the 11 partner institutions:

1. Info Project SRL  RO- 5
2. EUROCULTURE CY –3
3. Diocesan Caritas ostraviensis– opaviensis CZ- 3
4. Telek 23 KFT (SITE 23 LTD) HU- 2
5. Polo Europeo della Conoscenza- IC LORENZI IT-3
6. STOWARZYSZENIE NA RZECZ ROZWOJU GMINY ZYCHLIN PL- 8
7. Junta de Freguesia da Vila de S. Tomé de Negrelos PT- 8
8. Znanstveno raziskovalno združenje za umetnost, kulturno-izobraževalne programe in tehnologijo EPeKa SL- 1
9. FONS FORMACIÓ ZONA MEDITERRÀNIA, S.L.L. ES -2
10. Viksjoforsbaletten  SE- 2  
11. Upperby Community Development Centre UK-6

From the very beginning we want  to point out that this new meeting was at least as successful as  the previous ones due  to the quality  of  all participants, to the way in which all teams had prepared the materials for the meeting ,   and also  to the way the host organization managed  to plan  everything in detail.

 All teams were accommodated in the same hotel, very close to the location where the project activities took place.

 

Wednesday, 24 Oct 2012
Arrival of participants to the Hotel IBIS
Thursday, 25 Oct 2012
9:00	Meeting point at HOTEL IBIS (lobby)
9:30	Opening the meeting  -  "Welcome to Spain!" 10:00 Greetings, presentation of participants to new entry
	General state of art of the project
10:30	Presentations of each organization and work done
11:30	Coffee Break!
12:00	Presentations of each organization and work done
13:30	Lunch
15:00	Results on the questionnaire on the Generation Gap
17:00	End session - Free time!
20:30	Dinner
Friday, 26 Oct 2012
	9:00 Opening the second day of the meeting
	9:30 Presentation and debate with different Spanish organizations:  ENCÍS, represented by Muntsa Prat;ESPLAC, represented by Estel Buch i Oriol Castro
11:30	Coffee Break!
12:00	Discussion about the results on the questionnaire on the Generation Gap
13:30	Lunch
15:00	Meeting of the project coordinators (future plans, website,  dissemination)
17:00	End session - Free time!
21:30	Dinner
Saturday, 27 Oct 2012
9:00	Opening the third day of the meeting
9:30	Final ideas, comments, minutes and evaluation of the meeting (feedback)
11:30	Coffee Break!
12:00	Program discussions  and evaluation
13:30	Lunch
15:00	Visit to Montserrat Mountain and to Sagrada Familia

According to the oral and written feedbacks of all participants everybody appreciated the hospitality of the host organization, the way they organized the meeting.

The presentations of each organization and the  work done in the project  was also very good.

The results of the questionnaire presented  by the teams were also very well received  by the participants.

 The presentations of the two Spanish institutions ENCIS  and ESPLAC were also very much appreciated. All of us came into contact with two organizations involved in very interesting social activities  and events.

 As  all teams were accommodated at the same hotel and all of us had lunch  and dinner together, offered us the opportunity  to socialize  and spend most of the time together.

The traditional moment of a dance in which all participants, young  or  old, got involved  was guided  by two Indian dancers.

 The conclusion of the meeting was again:

"If there is any generation gap,  nobody feels it within our group made  up of people starting  from 18 to 70".

 Many thanks  to  all teams  for their dedication  to the success of the project.

 Mariana Hudrea

Project coordinator

Barcelona Project Reunion Feedback by Georgiana Achim

First of all, I wish to thank you again for the opportunity to take part in this wonderful experience.  Everything was very well organized and everybody worked really hard during this meeting. All 11 teams did their best to present the results on the generation gap questionnaire and after everybody finished their presentations the conclusion was that all the results were similar. This means that everywhere people face the same problems, that there is a conflict between generations irrespective of nationality and that the conflict manifests itself the same for every country.

  The Romanian team had an excellent leader, who made all of this possible and who was the liaison that finally turned the group into a family, where age was not important and who offered us the most incredible experience in our lives.

        What I loved most about this project was the constant communication between the adults and young people. Despite the age difference, everybody could find one or more interests in common and then debate and discuss different aspects of life.  For example, what really brought all of us together was the Bollywood lesson organized by the Spanish team as a surprise. Everybody tried to mimic the moves of the two Indian dancers and strived to keep up. Age was not a barrier. The dance and laughter were the key ingredients for an excellent night and excellent bonding time. 

After hard work came the fun part. Given that Barcelona has many wonders, we dedicated our free time in exploring them. The first of them was Montserrat, an amazing sacred mountain with the most exquisite views and landscapes which seemed to mark the line between Heaven and Earth. The basilica of Montserrat matched the beauty of the scenery. Afterwards, in the afternoon, the Sagrada Familia wowed us with its grandness and unique style. Everybody there could feel the mystical air and enjoy the wonderful light shed by the stained glass.

We got the best out of our last day in Barcelona and visited Montjuic and the Aquarium in Port Velle. Needless to say, Montjuic has probably the most amazing view of Barcelona which is absolutely breath-taking. From there one can see the entire town with its colorful buildings designed by the greatest architects that ever existed and the wonderful blue sea as well.

I returned home joyful because of the divine time I had spent there and knew that someday I would have to return and continue my visit, for Barcelona is one of the greatest cities in the world with a distinctive architectural style.

         For me this was probably the most incredible experience so far, not only due to the fantastical attractions of the town, but also because this project taught me how to understand better the elderly, how to talk to them and how to diminish the conflict between generations. In my opinion, this is a wonderful project which is bound to be successful due to amazing people who prepared and planned in detail everything and due to their determination, their abilities to accomplish everything they set their minds on.

Someday it will be my turn to teach my children what I’ve learned from this experience.

Georgiana Achim

Our first Course Meeting

News from the Hungarian partner – blog entry on 9th October, 2012

                                          

This is the emblem and the building of the Culture House in Erdőkertes

I am pleased to inform you that the first session with the Hungarian „test groups” was carried out last Thursday, on 26th September – and it was a great success!

Erdőkertes Culture House - http://www.erdokertesfaluhaz.hu/ - helped us organize the courses by providing us the premises as well as launching a kind of campaign – they prepared posters and leaflets and informed their partners and the local schools about the event as well as entered a publication in both the local and the regional journal.

Last Thursday we covered the 60 kilometres well in time in order to arrive at the spot and install the projector and the computer.

We were armed with pens and copybooks as well as some snacks to make the course activity more attractive.

The first session was for the younger generation and they were really young: the youngest was 12 and she was really talented and interested in everything.

The older generation was represented in the evening class (finishing at 9), where the oldest was around 65-70 and quite enthusiastic about the program.

Although we did not cover the same material from the online course – accessible from the web site www.telek23.hu – in both groups but we could experience that everybody turning up for class was not only satisfied with what they heard but ready to come back the next time. We will see next Thursday!

We were quite happy and a bit tired when we finally left the place after tidying up and putting away the camera, the video and the projector.

Kate and Andrew Fazekas

Rafał Nowicki

Generation gap – a real problem or just a human figment?

 The beginning of the summertime I spent on the meeting of the participants  of Grundtvig project “Young and adults for a better life”  in  Cyprus. It was the third  mobility within the project and the first one I attended. Before this meeting I’d had some view  on the problem of generation gap but thanks to discussions I took part and presentation I was able to watch in Cyprus ,  I learned a lot and had the chance to  understand my colleague’s opinion.

Most people think that generation gap manifests itself through differences in mentality, outlook and the perception of self. I strongly believe that generation gap is nothing more than unnecessarily invented term of differences in personality. I agree with the statement by by Richard C. Adelman “The generation gap is an immensely misleading term. It implies that people from different generations are inherently different whereas people within a generation are inherently similar.” This quote is from the book Aging Awakenings: Assisted Living Residents Teach University Students to Overcome Ageism.

It is indisputable that young and adults sometimes have  different point of view. Having own opinion and disagreeing with the others is a vital feature of personality  of  human beings and it is not connected with the age and so called generation gap. There are  a lot of conflicts among  people of  the same age group, for instance conflicts among  children at  school, workers and politicians. . Generation gap is basically created by the people themselves. They don't talk to their children and share their own points of views with the children.

The point is that the parents are just so busy with their work and jobs that they don't have time for their family and their children. And they realize it when there has a huge distance between the kids and the parents. The point is if parents give their children some time from their busy schedule then there would be no such a problem.

Many people state that there is  parents – children conflict  because the childhood of parents was completely different than their children. Partly it is true,  technology has changed our lives. Today, we take the Internet and the ability to communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere for granted. It is the norm for us. For our parents and our grandparents, this was not the case. While today's youth have grown up surrounded by computers, their parents did not. As a result, the young generation is more comfortable with technology because it has grown along with them. They don’t have  to learn anything new. From the end of the XX Century technology is developing as fast as ever. Unfortunately, a lot of middle-aged or elderly people think that they are too old to learn new technology what is nonsense. It seems to me that a lot of people don’t believe in their abilities. It  is not connected with the age but rather with their personality. I know a lot of people of my age with very low self-esteem, they are afraid of defeat. I strongly believe that life experience, not only childhood builds personality.

Looking for conflicts is a part of  human nature and it had ever been. Quarrels and conflicts caused by  different views have always existed but as I mentioned before it concerns people from all age groups without exceptions.

Ability to listen to others, being open-minded , patient  and tolerant  are  important to cooperate with the others  without conflicts. I had never problems with anyone caused by so called “generation gap”. There are four important conditions that I  mentioned above to carry on a cultural conversation. What is more, as everyone knows , children are  like                    ” a clear piece of paper” and a lot of their behaviour are  inherited from their  parents. Contrary to most people believe, I think that conflicts in human society depend on personality and the baggage of experience, rather than generation gap. If everyone gets involved to improve his  social skills and believes in  himself, there will be no conflicts.