Towards the End

The TOWEL project is coming to its end! No more project meetings, no more talks and decisions about the future. The only things that will still remain are the nice friendship among the project partners, the lessons learned and memories from the spectacular places we have visited and the possibility to go on organizing learning events in the future.
And this is because we have made together, all three partners, a model that can be easily followed by anyone interested in informal learning and involving disabled people in easy and pleasant learning happenings. It's easy just to decide on a topic, a time and a place, to meet there and to share what each participant knows on that topic. No teachers, no grades, no exams, no failure or mistakes, no all-knowing or useless persons. Just learners.
We had the opportunity to organize lots of learning events, each partner. And the topics were also extremely diverse: culture, history, social life, sports, organizational development, strategies, photography, filming, food and drinks, ceramic manufacturing and many, many others. And we had the chance to see how people with disabilities enjoy tremendously these events, and how non-disabled people came together and loved being there, without having any negative attitudes towards disabilities.
The entire project was a great experience. Everybody won from it, and we are all better persons, we know more and we are better professionals. New doors have opened, new horizons and dreams have started for each one of us.
We'll meet again! For sure!

Salamanca, End of the Road

So, our project is at the end. The final meeting of TOWEL - TOgether WE Learn project took place in Salamanca - Spain. 
The three project partners - Esperando Association Baia Mare (Romania), CRMF Salamanca, Polish Teachers Union Bialystok Branch - met again, for the last time during this Grundtvig Learning Partnership Project.
The Spanish hosts made a great job again. They have not only prepared very well the meeting, but also arranged for a wonderful visit to the State Reference Center for Alzheimer Salamanca. It was a a really great opportunity to visit  this state-of-the-art center where Alzheimer research and treatment is one step ahead of the world. Incredible place, fantastic facilities and extremely dedicated professionals - these are the ingredients of a model centre, visited and admired by Alzheimer specialists from all over the world. A pleasure for us and a unique opportunity to learn about Alzheimer, about the proper way to work with the patients and about the modern tools available (most of them would be extremely useful for any facility for disabled people).
Other highlight of the project meeting was the Conference on Unemployment in Disadvantaged Collectives, organized by CRMF. Lots of students attend it, but also many officials from the Government and state institutions. And with many interesting and well informed presentations, too!
We had also the special honor to award the diplomas to the CRMF students who worked in the TOWEL project. Some of them prepared the project logo, other prepared other materials for the project and the meetings, some of them filmed the work, some participated in the contests launched in the project by the Spanish partner, and others just participated in the learning events. And we have to admit that their work was very professional and we were impressed by the quality of the the products.
Well, and the final learning events on Salamanca, Spain, automotive history and the final talks on the final report and the project products concluded this visit. And the project is coming itself at the end, slowly but surely...

POLAND Again - Together with Disabled Youth

March was a special month. Not only because, instead of being the beginning of the spring, it was one of the most cold month of this winter. But also because we have organized the fourth project meeting, in Poland again.
This time, we took advantage of the smaller distance and we have organized a trip also together with disabled young adults. 5 of them (3 in wheelchairs!), accompanied by 4 staff, joined Daniel and Andrada, and so the Romanian team was impressive this time!
The meeting was great! We had the chance to make some learning events again about Poland and Warsaw, about history and culture (Chopin rings you a bell?), social life and foods and drinks. We visited The Institute for the Deaf and Mute, a special vocational school, where the Romanian students were fascinated by all the opportunities to learn a job/ trade.
We also had a great event in Bialystok: a very well organized conference - "Understanding Disability". Lots of people, teachers, officials from local authorities and from the Government, students and wonderful artistic show prepared by disabled students. And, after the Conference, we had a very interesting interactive debate with the members of the Teachers Association from the Podlaskie region.
Back to Warsaw, we continued the discussions about the future of the TOWEL project, the final products and report, and the future meeting in Salamanca. We have also talked about new projects, especially since the the Polish and the Romanian partners submitted already a new Grundtvig Learning Partnership this year.
All the experience was extraordinary for the young adults with disabilities from Esperando. They had a wonderful time in Warsaw, despite the tremendous cold and the lack of accessibility in many places. But having the opportunity to visit a new country, a splendid city of Europe and a couple of well established educational institutions make it worth entirely. TOgether WE Learn has a different meaning now for us, for the partners (impressed by our young adults) and for the individuals with special needs who travelled to Poland.
On their way home, our young adults were only talking about coming back to Poland. And, when they crossed the Romanian border, most of them started to cry and ask to stay there and not come back...