#ImagineEPALE - A shared, transnational, Community Conference
Is it possible to create a transnational event, built collaboratively, mixing online and onsite environments? Is it possible to engage different communities, from all around Europe, in a collective, constructive dialogue?
Yes, it is! Discover how: participate in the upcoming 2022 EPALE Community Conference (18-20 October).
Let’s delve into it to see how we made it, what’s in it for you, and how you can take part!
Co-creating a shared conference
At the beginning of June 2022, the representatives of the EPALE National Support Services and the Central Support Service met in Bologna to plan together the last bits of the Community Conference. We agreed on one point: after two online (very successful) editions, we needed to add something new. On the one hand, the online concept is powerful: with just one click, you can easily connect different people from different countries and reach a wider public – not to mention the beneficial effects on the environment. But on the other hand, having the possibility to meet in person also has an undeniable advantage to engage socially, network, meet new people and discuss joint projects.
It’s hard to choose… so we decided not to choose, but to do both!
Inspired by the event organised in 2021 by NSS Belgium NL (a collective screening of the conference, complemented by a workshop), we sit together with a big calendar, a large number of post-its, many sheets of paper, coloured markers… and enthusiasm! And we planned the shared, interconnected conference we can now present to you!
National Side Events: your chance to meet and participate in person
The EPALE Community Conference will connect the European level with the local ones, the online community with the real and concrete persons behind it, with the online part complemented by more than 20 events happening on the same days in 17 different countries.
You will find plenty of different formats and ideas among the National Side Events. In many cases (Austria, Belgium NL, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Finland, Italy), the NSSs have organised collective screenings: participants gather in a public room and watch together an online session of the Community Conference, and then have the chance to discuss the contents, or further elaborate them through workshops or panels.
In other cases, the topics of the Community Conference have been the inspiration to organise parallel conferences (Belgium DE), workshops (Germany, Hungary, Montenegro, Netherlands), seminars (Latvia, Poland) and panel discussions (Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain).
#ImagineEPALE
But there will also be other ways to actively participate in the EPALE Community Conference!
Watch the Conference online, on EPALE, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and sign in for one of our interactive workshops.
You can let us know you are there, using the hashtag #ImagineEPALE on social media to be part of the EPALE Community Conference community! Get involved by sharing your thoughts, selfies, drawings, notes and visual notes, buzzwords, mood...
Are you ready? We are!
