On the 22nd of September the Final Conference of the IGTrain project, which aims to train experienced workers to pass on their knowledge to the young employees in their workplace, took place at Espace Monte Paschi Belgio in Brussels. The event was organized by Partenalia aisbl, leader of the work package dissemination of the IGTrain Project and the other partners of the IGTrain consortium (Verein Multikulturell, Bimec Ltd, Mozaik, COOS Marche and Waterpolis).
The conference, entitled “Intergenerational learning on the workplace: networking opportunities”, started with a welcoming speech pronounced by the leaders of the project: Valia Dankova from Bimec Ltd and Ovagem Agaydian from Verein Multikulturell. Then, Cecilia Liljegren, Poject Officer of EACEA gave an interactive presentation on the EACEA website and presented to the partners the existing funding opportunities under the Key Action 2 of Erasmus +. In particular, she underlined that the latter offers to the organisations the opportunity to work together, sharing best practices and innovative approaches for supporting the design and delivery of joint vocational training curricula, programmes and teaching and training methodologies.
Thanks to Karine Nicolay (EPALE coordinator for Flanders) and Michèle Mombeek (EPALE coordinator for Brussels and Wallonia), the audience had the chance to better understand the functioning of the EPALE (Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe) Platform, where professionals and organizations in the adult learning sector have the possibility to find resources, articles, events, partners and coordinate with other organizations of the sector. In particular, the two speakers highlighted the importance of the platform for finding project partners in other countries.
The second part of the event consisted in the presentation of the project by the IGTrain consortium. In this context, the partners discussed the different steps of the project, explained the challenges faced and discussed the impact this had in the partners’ countries and in the different sectors where it was implemented. An important focus of the discussion was certainly on its main results. In particular, the discussion focused on the Multmedia products distributed to the participants and containing information about the project and more importantly, about the Train-the-Trainer course and the Guide developed during its two years of duration.
Then, the discussion was enriched by two presentations about two other projects: the ILPO (Intergenerational learning partnership) over 55 whose ultimate aim is to create an Intergenerational Learning Partnership that will support the employability and will reduce the skills mismatch of the over 55 employees from the Financial Services Sector (FSS) as well as of the new/existing employees, and the OPC-SFC, which focuses on soft and non-technical skills and offered the opportunity to discuss the possible relationship existing in this context with intergenerational learning.
Finally, the participants were divided in two groups. The groups, organized according to the participants’ interest, expressed at the time of registration, offered the opportunity to the participants not only to express their opinion and share ideas but to consider new collaborations in the adult education sector.
