Openness to diversity through community education

The strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020) set an objective to involve 15% of adult population aged 25-64 in education in 2020.One of the target groups that have difficulties becoming involved in education is adults from disadvantaged backgrounds. The aim of the project “Openness to diversity through community education” (ODEon) was to develop recommendations for involvingadults from disadvantaged backgrounds in education. The project also targeted to improve competence of adult educators and involve them in the exchange of experience.The project was developed in cooperation with three partners: the lead partner Kurzeme Planning Region (Latvia), and two other partners, namely, social theatre NUCLEO (Teatro NUCLEO) and a non-governmental organisation OPEI, Organization forPromotion of European Issues (Cyprus). The project comprised two activities, “Project Management and Implementation” and “Learning, teaching, training”. Three learning sessions were organised in the framework of these activities. Each partnerorganised one session which altogether involved 63 participants.The result of the project is the developed recommendations on involving adults from disadvantaged backgrounds in education, as well as some proposals for adult educators’ professional training. The developed results can be consulted on the EPALEplatform.The project participants have improved their pedagogical, linguistic and intercultural competences, as a result improving the capacity of organisations involved in the project development. The recommendations and proposals were submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia for their further use in policy-making.