How to organize better in movements? How to create solidarity networks? How to formulate narratives? How to work sustainably and not burn out in the process? These are just some of the topics that we tackled together with other social change makers and active citizens during the last year in the tranquil setting of a Spanish mountain village as part of the Erasmus+ project’s CEA trainings.

A total of 22 of our staff and volunteers attended one of nine training sessions in Spain, focusing on different aspects of our work. In addition to new knowledge, we gained time and space to get to know people from different parts of Europe who share the same goals as us, or the rare opportunity to focus quietly on topics and issues that are key to us.

The project has offered us new angles on the issues we are working on, as well as interesting knowledge and information coming not only from the lecturers but also from working collectively in groups. In addition, we learned and applied methods of learning and group facilitation. They are now a regular part of our daily practice and we use them to enhance our educational work for our adult learners.

The objectives we worked on during this project were: 

1) To increase our ability to develop and deliver curriculum on resilience and regenerative community development in order to strengthen communities and local civic engagement.

2) Empowering marginalised and disadvantaged learners to take on civil society and educational leadership roles by creating dedicated learning spaces.

3) Strengthening our program supporting adult educators in the creation of inclusive learning environments through up-skilling up our staff.

4) Create more professional skill development opportunities and increase collaboration skills of our staff to ensure the highest, European quality of our educational provision for our learners.

Some practical results (examples) we can report that came out of the project: 

• We developed a new methodology for working with the topic of polarisation in Universities, which can be consulted here: https://www.prostorprospor.cz/cs/methodology
• The implementation of a new program on leadership for learners from marginalised backgrounds. The implementation of this programme was brought about by a skillshare session amongst our staff participating in the Organising for Leaderful Movements and Organising Skills.
• Throughout our mentoring and evaluation process, all of our staff indicated an increased understanding of inclusive educational approaches as this is one of the key pedagogical pillars of all CEA trainings. 

We can recommend CEA to any organisation looking for sustainable and strategic ways to develop itself, build solidarity networks or set up new and effective strategies and processes in order to grow their overall capacity to offer transformative educational programmes. CEA has been a great source of inspiration for NESENUTI and has provided us with insights that we are now putting to real use in our work.