First rough draft of some of what was said, please comment, correct and amend!

Some notes
still to be inserted plus editing, clarifying and excuse shorthand which I have not yet
translated into English e.g. CD=Community Development. Sometimes there is no note of the
name and sometimes there is you could help me here!

Training and Learning for Community

Development
Life Long Learning Programme – Key
Activity 4
(See Appendix A for a Summary of the
project and Appendix B for list of partners)
Report of Laboratory
15th October to 18th October 2008
Meeting place: Garaget, Lönngatan 30,
Malmö

Notes:

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This report reflects the views only of the TLCD Consortium, and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

References: 135744-NL-KA4MP Training and Learning for Community Development

Life Long Learning Programme – Key Activity 4 Call for Proposals 2007 EAC/61/2006

15th October 2008

Partners arrive and meet informally.

16th October 2008 Chair Hans Andersson:

10.00 Presentation of participants in pairs and forum: Hans Andersson

10.30 Welcome from the city of Malmö and presentation of Garaget: Svenjohan
Davidsson

11.00 Presentation of the TLCD-project and aims of Laboratory: Margo, Sven and
Jenny
 To distil main lessons and results from all relay visits
 To identify creative methods for networking and dissemination of results

11.15 Time Machine

Participants entered the time machine were they were invited to go back in time and
place to revisit each of the relays where the host presented outcomes and questions

Feedback from Relay Time Machine

Brussels Relay

 At the session we looked at the report and then explored what ideas we
can explore with a view to implementation. One example of this is in the
Garaget here – how do you keep the dialogue.

 Sustainability as key word.

 What do we mean by needs assessment in TLCD. Are there standards that

need to be met for professionals?

 After all the relays are complete how do we combine what we learn?

Budapest’
Ilona will make a note but would emphasise 2 things
1) Wider view –important to involve as many actors of society as we can
because people are closed in their own limitations and no analysis of the
 neighbourhood, the country or Europe. We need to train them as catalysts
for a Training and Learning process

2) Against the fashion of Good Practice because sometimes good practice

can happen after failure or conflict. We don’t want a sugar-coated Europe
and we don’t want a Europe of window-dressing.

3) CD cannot be service delivery.

UK

 Every group was different. Sue felt under pressure to do a lot of the talking
and describe what they did. Some of the issues for Community Workers
and then the process and what that means for Training and Learning for
CD. There are challenges for Community Workers that are more
fundamental than the challenges for TLCD.

 How do Community Workers feedback to the community what they have

been doing?
 What are we measuring and how doe we feedback that measurement?
That is also important for TLCD.

Slovakia, Banksa Bystrica

 The main thing we focussed on were the tensions between CO and CD.
When we were in BB we tried to define.

 CO came up as a strategy and a tool and can be used in a cycle

 Not comparable

 Social Planning and Social Policy

Berlin

 Started with main conclusions from Relay looking at collective public

actions. How to create learning experiences for professionals and for
activists?

 Analysis of starting situation is an important foundation of any action

including TLCD

 How to find ways to pool different kinds of knowledge and bring them
together in a way that is accessible to different groups.

We need different and adaptable means of interaction.

Importance of relation building including public relations.
General Reflections:
 It was a big challenge to shape the relay visit 5 more times when we thought that
we had already done it!
 It also helped to shape some new conclusions.
 It reminded me that the relay was an experiment and it was the first time I
experienced such a means of exchange. (Emil)
 Svenjohan emphasised how Garaget is open to all and is itself a laboratory for the
district but why not also a symbol of how local is also European. While the TLCD
Laboratory was working, there were local people who sometimes listened in and
some had their own meetings in parallel, for example one of the older men locally
has a men’s club, which was meeting in while we were discussing the relay. They
focus on support for immigrant men. They make trips together and have
discussions. They have set up some international exchanges using their own
networks.
 Hans presented reflected on Training and Learning in the groups. With hindsight, there
was not enough clarity in the instruction but groups managed to make some good points.

14.00 Session on use of Community Development and Community

Organization

14.00 Community development presented by Sue Webb/Hall

 When I first saw this in the programme I thought what a broad topic. Hans
suggested the American model. I selected the following for us to talk about here:

 Where does Training and Learning fit in and where does it relate to community
practice.

 In CDF service delivery and corporate responsibility would be included in the CD

framework.
 I decided to invite other participants to tell us something about their perspective
on CD around Europe.

Gianni
 CD is inherent in Community which is developing. Issues and problems they want
to work on and to solve. In doing this they will work together and develop peace
and harmony.
 Facilitate the process of CD – we are not the main actors, they must continue it
themselves and make them develop in a peaceful and sustainable way.

 Accessibility (management of development )

 Participation everybody to take part in

 Managing conflict is inherent Ways to facilitate this process and we do this

through mediation.
 What is important is to make people actors not only to work with their problems
but also with their potential.

Magda

 Central to our approach is empowerment. Development is inherent is good idea

but it is not always possible but you have to empower people
 Empowerment Personal level you learn how to do things but also structural
changes in the system so that development happens in the structures
Oonagh

I work with Training and Learning and reinforce what Magda said and would add:

 Task Social change linked to social justice

 Process bringing personal into connection with wider group

 Moving outside of that community to achieve long term change

 Going beyond participation and beyond capacity building to consciousness.

 In Ireland we are in bed with the state – in and against and aware of the tension.
 Definition of Govt is that CD is about promoting positive social change in society
in favour of those most disadvantaged Exact quote from Oonagh to be inserted.

Fenny:
In Holland there is a book (get title from Fenny) on Samenlevingsopbouw that
defines the role of CD to stimulate and help people to live together in a productive
way. We make a distinction between task and process that is multi- levelled.

Process
Categories on any scale neighbourhood, city or province that is territory.
Not only taking place in neighbourhoods but at different levels
Involve different actors people who are part of community
Task
CD person task is to make sure that these different professions work
together so that different professionals work together with community.
Sue’s Summary

Sue combined these different presentations: and pointed out that there are
Common threads we all agree on: e.g. participation, empowerment, enabling and
also raised some questions:

How do we relate this to training we have for community workers?

What critical consciousness do all the actors have to have?

What is the dialogue they need to raise that critical consciousness? One of the
ways we do that is reflective practice.

Community Organising: Paul Cromwell

 Paul challenged the view of Community Organising, which said it used conflict to
get results. He said that he found the work on the TLCD project impressive and
was working at how to get up to speed with project.
 He shared what CO means to those involved in it:

 Purpose is to bring lots of people together to powerfully solve neighbourhood

issues (or specific groups

 He gave examples that demonstrated that the concept of Power is that it equals
lots of money and lots of people. We don’t have lots of money but we have the
potential to mobilise lots of people.

 Mayor of a city will respond differently to Director of Volkswagen and individual

homeless person but if you bring lots of people together then Mayor will respond
differently.

Process of Community Organising

1) Listening systematically to lots of people (want to be sure that themes are

really important to people but also because this is how we guarantee
participation either through self- interest or have a relationship of trust and
respect with someone who has invited them. This is done through house
meeting, one to one or visiting and groups Listen to self-interests and identify
them and begin to build relationship of trust and respect.
2) Research to find potential solutions to what has been identified:
What do we want and when? Specific needs not moaning about gaps
Who can give us what we want? Targeting individuals with power
Who are our potential allies?

3) Solution can take a self-help track but primarily we work with organisations:

Relationship of Community Organising to Training and Learning:

How do we train? I started because I wanted to change the world but I stayed
because of what happens to people in this process. This can make a powerful
transformation in people’s lives.

Lots of face-to-face visits: Train volunteers in one evening and then they practice it
with each other. Not teaching people anything new but we help people to do it with
intentionality.

Relationships become the glue.

Power analysis: potential allies.

Training people to negotiate: A part of all CO

Planning
Acting
Evaluation

Unequal power and conflict is a given but sometimes Local Authorities welcome
participation and involvement and that is what we seek.
If LA says no then there is the level of preparation for challenge and conflict.

Long-term multi issue, multi theme organisations.

Discussion

Do you need professionals for Community Organising? In Paul’s experience, it works

better with paid staff.

Cultural differences in what we call Community Organising or CD or Community

Work. There are important distinctions and there is also complementarity - the 3
steps in CO – planning, acting evaluating - apply equally to CD. HACD has a
movement side to it and another is providing professional Community Development,
In HACD there is emphasis on Civil Society Development. CD is a huge moving
space, which is not over-regulated in Hungary

Carole: questions of terminology. French is close to Gianni’s definition. In France the

term is “social development” usually with the addition of ‘local’ to signify community of
place.

Tasks – Process- objectives and the approaches to power: Participation and reducing
inequality

Empower is strong but some people use it simply about capacity building which is not
very strong.

Participation: We often have contradictory tendencies in CO and CD and in

ourselves. Conference in December about these tendencies – one is away from
participation towards top down because participation does not always work well.

It’s more than conversation around the kitchen table to techniques for Training and
Learning have to take us further.

Community of Place, Belonging, Interest etc. are all part of it.

Sue reflected on the mathematics of society and how our world view has changed.
From linear to everything finds its own equilibrium. Never the same. Always
something that can change it and we have to take into consideration something
extraneous can influence the equilibrium. Efficiency and effectiveness and the market
orientated thinking can influence the dialogue about what is happening to
communities and put pressure on us. What are we losing when we get involved in
service delivery?

Tensions between CO and CD one important link is to representative and

participatory democracy. Sometimes it is important to have CO as starting point but
never to have it funded by the state. Danger of Them and Us

Discussion of both linked to participatory democracy and representative. Keep that in

mind ecological non-sugar dynamic.
Magda wants to share something from perspective of PACT. Create community
groups in communities that we don’t know in Romania. What skills should we teach
these people? Chuck did training on CO. We have to teach people to express their
voice and negotiate with Local Authority. If we use CO which can be aggressive and
conflictive but what do we leave there. Our choice was that we could not afford CO
because people were not confident. So we chose partnership and perseverance with
the LA. When they throw you out the door, you go back in the window. Sometimes in
CO, you break the windows

Gianni, What we have experienced and experimented is the diversity in the different
countries. For me it was quite a shock to see this opposition. Maybe in England
where there is a lot of interference from the state in CD.
Different conceptual approaches

Organising together or developing is a false dichotomy.

You have to organise to develop. In some cases it may not be conflictive but
complementary and we can do this through TLCD.
Kirsten: We need chaos pilots to steer us through this!

17th October 2008

Theme: Citizenship, culture and communication: Chair Hans Andersson

9.00 Participation

Margo gave apologies from Cristiana Vlad of ARCD who could not attend but
who has done and excellent presentation on the theory and practice of
‘Participation’. Margo will request that this is available to the Consortium on
the website. In her view this presentation is much better than the ‘ladder of
participation’, which Hans, Margo and Magda decided to throw away as it had
outlived its usefulness as an image. An alternative arrangement was tailor
made for the group to work on the second aim of the Laboratory, which is

“To identify creative methods for networking and dissemination of results”

From Relay to Laboratory to Dissemination: Magda Tancau and Margo Gorman

Session 1: Participation in Dissemination

Personal reflection on “How I will participate in dissemination”

Feedback in Forum on “What do I want to disseminate?

Lies Samenlevingsbouw,BE

• Report on relay visit in Brussels

 • History of CD in our own country and consiousness of that history among
professionals.
• Link CD in Flanders to European CD

Kirsten The Ideas Bank NO

I want to work on what is the essence of the findings from the 5 relay visits and relate
that to the Norwegian context. I will use the report from the Laboratory to help match
the findings from the relay visits.

Sarah: CESIE, IT
I will extract the main threads and make them accessible

Sue, CDF UK
We need to develop a plan based on all the reports and related to the context.

Carole Dane, IRDSU, FR

I will update the report on CD in France for the CEBSD website based on the 6 points
of reference for the relay visits. I will use this as a basis for future work on a
conference in France in December 2008 and a big conference in 2010 where the
European dimension will be integrated.

Schorse, Kommunales Forum DE

I will use the work on TLCD as the basis for an invitation to be involved and to take
part in future work on TLCD.

Gianni, FDC, ES
I will use the work to reflect on the diversity of the processes needed. There is one
big question to work on: how to transform the “target” groups to actors. This is a core
question for the process of using CD as a vehicle for developing democracy.

Ilona, HACD, HU:

The template attached to the draft dissemination plan for the project helped HACD
identify how much we have used the inspiration and influence of the project in our
work. (Ilona gave several examples from the template to highlight how the project
has been used to give a European dimension to HACD’s work for example using
material for the MEA degree. TLCD has also helped inspire a restructuring of HACD’s
training system for local people.

Paul Cromwell, CKO

The task of bringing the material from relay visits together should be a common task
of partners. The embryonic European Community Organising network would be
interested in links. The CEECN network is developing a database on best practice
and this could be linked to work on TLCD. It could also be used to help shape the
curriculum for Social Work, which is being developed by the Academy for Social
Work in Slovakia.

Emil Metodiev, CEGA, BG

I am interested in putting together the findings from the relay visit and also the
method of relay, which was unique to me. This method should be disseminated. A
handbook on process with tips on how to overcome problems encountered would
also be useful.

Oonagh McArdle, CWC, IE

I agree that we should disseminate the diversity of approaches but I think we have a
lot in common in spite of the different experiences, different context and status of CD
in different countries. There has been shared Purpose, Process and Values held in
the Laboratory and that is valuable and worth sharing. There is the potential to shape
the future of CD rather than have it shaped by others. What can we hold onto and
use? I will find ways to involve CWC in CEBSD. I would support the idea of collation
of materials.

Johannes Bertelesen, KSS, DK

I have a lot of my own impressions to share in Denmark but I don’t have one clear
message. Should we have someone to work alongside relays to help distil the
findings as they happened?

Feedback in Forum on “How do I plan to disseminate?”

Some said that how and what were closely related so should be linked and
the specific group targeted for dissemination needs to be clear.

1) CWC would like to see the library of Combat Poverty Agency in Ireland established as
a resource for Community Development in Europe
2) CDF will do a dissemination plan for UK for internal CDF colleagues and for contacts
in other organisations involved directly in CD
3) CDF will disseminate material in CDF policy networks
4) HACD will integrate TLCD into work including the MA Programme
5) Carole will use material in conferences planned for 2009 and 2010 and will put more
ideas on paper in preparation for these to help involve French networks in the project.
6) CESIE will identify target groups.
7) CESIE will use the material in their existing networks at local, national and European
level and will use material in to develop new projects.
8) CESIE volunteered to take first steps to help develop an online archive of material.
9) Kommunales Forum will disseminate at a regional level in the first instance through
people involved in the relay. They will also work with other European projects and
people in universities.
10) Ideas Bank will put information about relays in newsletter
11) ID will work with delegation of those on People and Politics project to make links.ID
will strengthen links with other projects for joint learning e.g. make links with People
in Politics website. ID will make links to final conference of People and Politics
project and the booklet they plan to produce. There will be a short article on TLCD in
the booklet.
12) Samenlevingsopbouw will target those doing training in CD and their networks of
those involved in TLCD e.g. Group of adult educators (through the delivery of
training)
13) Carole will explore multiplying through the social press in France.
14) Fenny will put material in the professional journal which she edits in NL and will set
up a network for CD workers to help them get in touch with European partners.
 15) Fenny will also share material at 2 conferences one national, one international to
develop dialogue at different levels. The International Council for Social Welfare will
hold a conference on CD next year in the Hague
16) Fenny will put material on website of MOVISIE
17) Fenny will work on bringing back a professional profile for CD workers in NL
18) CEBSD should develop a European professional profile for CD workers.
19) In Malmo, they are developing Garaget as a local resource and as national resource –
why not also a European resource for material on CD?
20) CEBSD should do a press release for European press and national journals etc.
21) CESAM will integrate material from TLCD in two new projects where local
authorities and NGOs are working together.

Session 2: Dissemination that reaches a specific target group:

Under pressure to make their message accessible, the partners distilled the following from the
Relay Visits for sharing (thanks to Lies Beunens for notes!)

1. Belgium hosting we need a framework for Training and Learning for Community
Development, which starts with, needs assessment and interaction between teaching
and learning, between trainer and trainee.
2. Hungary hosting Community Workers, link workers, Mediators should have a high
level of knowledge and awareness of CD and its history and should train other
professions on how to use Community Development Purpose, Process and Values in
their work.
3. When working in Partnerships with others especially Government, Community
Development has to remain in touch with and learn from the voice, needs and
perspective of volunteers and activists especially those who have not reached Third
Level education.
4. Community Development needs to be aware of the parallel method of Community
Organising, which seeks to develop a democratic culture.
5. Training and Learning for Community Development has to create learning experiences
for volunteers, activists and professionals using all resources available.

Working on role-play as partners act as disseminators and the receivers give feedback on the
message they hear.

When ‘tested’ with a Journalist, a European Commission official, a Community Worker, etc.
the following feedback was given: Notes to be inserted here:

Developing a European Dimension

Kirsten’s presentation;

Kirsten presented three photos as metaphors for the European Dimension -

1. The first photo was one from the press conference European Dialogue
seminar – a meeting between two European organisations/network committed
to the issue of Citizens participation cross Europe. It was a beautiful symbol
that the press conference took place in the old riverboat named “Europé”. The
photo represents the Horizontal connections people to people, where is
 Europe – not (only) in Brussels. It is where people live their “everyday lives”.
How can we strengthen this people to people exchange through training and
learning and by building upon the experiences we got through this project?
What are the similarities what are the communalities and how can we bring
this issue into training and learning in concrete training programmes in the
communities? At the European Dialogue seminar it and also in the relay
visits/reports it has been described as two realities for how to work with
community development, citizens participation and training and learning. The
Western and the post-communist countries. There is a need for best practical
examples on methods, projects and so on. The CEE CN started their
database, and has a competition. The Ideas Bank database – from the
Budapest declaration the need for European Ideas Bank was expressed. So
how to bring our best practices in training and learning into further exchange
at the European “people to people level”. How to develop and implement the
paragraph about Training and learning that this project is based on?

2. The second photo is the Catalonian Castellers, translated into the European
Citizens/human towers towards Europe. This represents the vertical. My
concern and commitment as and individual in the project. How can we bring
our best practices, our analysis our recommendations to EU and to our
national parliaments? How can our practice influence the policy? Should we
think of this both in the preparation of the final meeting of the People and
Politics project in Oslo? And also in the future perspective of the project? For
the TLCD project: How can we highlight this question in the further work and in
the final conference in Sofia?

3. The third photo represents the Learning spiral – we are a learning

partnership. Each partner has worked as we have heard with his or her own
local learning process. In the partnership we exchange and learn. What do we
learn for being together with partners from other countries in Europe and how
can we disseminate this learning experience?

Gianni Orsini: presentation

Some elements about the European dimension of the TLCD project

It is about the follow up of this project

We said yesterday that TLCD has to do with Citizenship education. It is important that
children and adolescents are on-goingly educated in citizenship, and that that
happens everywhere. A European framework can ensure that this happens, through
resources delivery and through a structural framework, which ensures that, a proper
mechanism exist to make the project sustainable.

Indeed, when we think of CD and of TLCD, we think very often locally (i.e. the French
definition of CD, i.e. developpement social local). It is likely that changes happens in
terms of values when there is a TLCD action at the local level, but it is also likely that
it doesn’t last too long if we don’t ensure that a policy or a mechanism or a structure
to maintain the change follows.
On the other hand, globalisation doesn’t concern only the global level anymore;
globalisation concerns the local level as well. We can already speak of micro-
globalisation. We cannot any more speak of local without associating global and vice-
versa. This is the new paradigm for transformation action. The European framework
is the more accessible global level for us; there is where we have our say, just in-
between the very local and the very global.

From this prospect why should we consolidate our work at the European level? In
addition to this necessity of a European framework, just demonstrated above, we
want to implement our own model, i.e. we want to be able to say NO to the social
control on the one hand and to the Fortress Europe on the other.

Sometimes we are playing the game of the governments and we ensure the social
cohesion they are not able to build. In a way we help them to get the social control.
On the contrary, we should be pro-active and impose our views instead of getting
their money and do what they want us to do.

The same with the fortress Europe, we should struggle against the construction of a
closed and secure Europe. Immigration shouldn’t be presented as a problem, but as
a challenge. We must be able to influence this up to bottom imposition.

How to achieve the last two objectives: by considering and convincing that TLCD is
not only for Communities, but also for the governments, official administration and
business sector (the triangle of participation), so that CD is the right vehicle for
inclusion, participation and democracy.

Some questions for consideration

Questions for group-work: THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION

1. Mapping: Which other European projects - which are focusing on or linked with the
European dimension in training and learning for community development, citizens
participation are you participating in? And how could we build bridges to or create
synergies with these projects?

2. Which new projects can we create to go more in depth into the issues that we
have highlighted in the relays and the laboratory?

The aim of the working group is to work out proposals and recommendations about
the sustainability of our project and in particular with respect to the content of the
Sofia conference.

Work on recommendations for action based on questions

Group 1

Links between CEECN and TLCD should be strengthened

People and Politics project should be a resource for learning and deepening links
L’association European De Regie de Quartier should be explored for links

Every partner should provide information about his or her national networks

Major area or networks to be explored within European networking

Open Method of Co-ordination
CD and Social Welfare
URB-ACT
European Anti-poverty network
European Social Platform

European dimension should be brought to a local level with pilot projects in a number
of countries and should have real exchange in one to one situations.

Group 2:

Gianni said the starting point was different. Looked at background in Budapest
Declaration and tried to see how to reformulate and change it in second paragraph
on CD training.

We should facilitate a common framework. Why do we need such a framework? First

we need a process at community level and then we can use EU process but
When there are bananas, there are monkeys. Money is not everything and
sometimes it can be used
Link Common European framework and bottom up issues. Links to Local government
is key as these institutions are key to change.
Lots of money in Germany but no profession as such. Do we want a profession?
If we want to have CD we have to educate all citizens throughout a lifetime. Through
such a framework we can have a lot of programmes with people who will make
recommendations and this will help to make a step forward in CD. If we look at the
background. We are missing concrete recommendations from grassroots level. We
need to facilitate big programmes to facilitate lots of projects, which can work
together to maintain and sustain CD.
Our project should have a recommendation to EACEA to release calls, which focus
on CD training and learning and citizenship education.
2009 priority is Social Inclusion and this can be tied in with that.

Group 3

1) Use opportunities for individual mobility under the Leonardo and Grundtvig
programmes also run by the Education and Culture Executive Agency. These
give you the opportunity to get to know the everyday work of others in another
country. The grant comes from your National Agency and is small scale to
cover your travel and subsistence and the paperwork is specific and not
difficult.
2) There are also opportunities under Grundtvig for organisations to organise
learning partnerships for exchanges based on a common interest. An
example that could be worth following up is centres for Community-based
learning such as Garaget, those in the relay visits etc.
 3) Identify key individuals and work out how to bring them in as multipliers for
example some of them could come to Sofia. Some could use the mobilities
described above to fund this.
4) Other European projects or networks should be invited to share the results of
the project. Examples were www.cest-transfer.de which is on the social
economy but has a Community Development module or REVES network for
socially responsible territories.

Group 4

CDF have a project on Debate, Dialogue Democracy and will relate it to TLCD
CDF have a project with Maltese government on training Social Workers in CD
European Social Platform has a conference on Civil Dialogue where CD dimension
should be included.
PACT has a project on Strengthening Civil Dialogue in Europe

CEGA have a project on Development Education

British Council in UK is working with CDF on a Dialogue project with UK and Slovenia

Dialogue project in Portugal INLOCO on dialogue with citizens is a potential multiplier

Armin wants to relate it to teaching students in University of Saarbrucken

Armin will involve Board Members of PBW in dissemination

CEGA would like to see a project on terminology for CD.

CEBSD should develop a system of accreditation for courses on CD to support

national trainers (with progression routes and exchange built into it.)

Group 5

1.The core issues from all the relay visits should be integrated into the European
Dimension and taken back to regional and national level.

2. Community Development Ideas, Visions and the material on needs assessment

and on history of CD is useful for training professionals and needs a wider audience.
3. We need a strategy and methods to help us see the path, which avoids over-
professionalisation and leads to creative learning opportunities with the following
characteristics
 Participation and inclusion
 Cross sectoral integrated approach (the Triangle)
 Learning to live European lives at a local level
 Development of Community Development working rules (standards?)
 Developing a policy for TLCD and testing it in pilot training
 Training for Trainers

Notes on creative and innovative methodology for dissemination

Clarity about the purpose, awareness of human relations, opportunities for good
interaction are just as important as creativity and innovation in techniques and
methods

Relay system has potential for replication as it does mean that knowledge is
cumulative but it may be more effective if there were resources for some one person
(in addition to the relay host) to accompany the whole process and distil the core of
the exchange as it progressed. This person could also prepare a ‘handbook’ of hints
and tips for making the most of exchange visits.

The power of the Image

Images were used in the Laboratory to represent the message for example, the
butterfly to represent the fragility of passing on information, knowledge and lessons
from our exchanges, the ‘distillery’ to represent the process of making the messages,
information and knowledge accessible and widely available, the labyrinth when we
are inside and can’t see the path out, chaos pilots to help us take an aerial view,
sugar-coated Europe or window-dressing to to symbolise shallow or false exchange
of good practice. Images to take into the future were the boat Europe in Budapest
and the Catalonian human castle to represent the horizontal and vertical connections
between each individual and Europe, the learning spiral to represent a lifelong
process of learning, Kirsten’s Earth’ – an image that we passed from hand to hand in
our final session and represents our responsibility and the link between local and
global.