On April 24th and 25th, Radio ECCA hosted the Second Transnational Meeting of the VET GOES RURAL Project (Innovating VET practices in isolated rural and remote regions of the EU), a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, which brings together seven Partners from five countries (Spain, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Greece). The Second Transnational Meeting, led by Radio ECCA took place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain).
The 'VETgoesRURAL' project aims to improve VET professionals' skills and capacities in order to provide enhanced training and foster learners' engagement in EU isolated rural and remote areas. The project encourages the strengthening of capacities and practices of national, regional, and local VET networks within 4 EU target countries - Spain, Italy, Greece, and Ireland.
This face-to-face meeting between the project partners has been fundamental to discuss the lessons learned so far. Among all the contributions made, the consortium agrees on the importance of continuing to direct efforts towards adult education in formal and non-formal contexts in isolated and/or rural areas. Although the realities of each of the countries are different, we agree that in rural and/or isolated contexts there are certain difficulties and barriers that hinder access to training. Among them, the lack of infrastructure, the number of dropouts, the lack of networks, etc. stand out. Among the members of the consortium, it is concluded that practitioners do not know how to respond to the difficulties that arise in these contexts, and do not have the tools and resources to face these challenges. The Methodological Suite and the course for trainers that will be developed within the framework of this project aim to respond to these needs detected in the research carried out by the consortium in a first phase.
The final version of the Methodological Suite, which includes tools, dynamics, good practices and methodologies that respond to the challenges detected in rural and/or isolated areas and, on the other hand, the VETgoesRURAL methodology, is currently being finalized. This meeting served to clearly define the steps to be followed in the following months in order to create useful and optimal resources aimed at trainers in these contexts so that they can better respond to the challenges of adult education in rural areas.