“Office Eco Consultant” initiative: issues and challenges arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The main aim of the “Office eco consultant” project is to develop and to pilot internationally innovative adult education training program and E-learning tools related to promotion of the Green Growth concepts in office environment.
The following article is intended to discuss the “Office Eco Consultant” initiative as well as issues and challenges arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Office eco consultant“ project partners strongly believe that even in the midst of significant uncertainty it is important to continue working toward achieving the goals and prevent the project implementation from getting utterly disrupted by global health crisis.
For instance, up until the last minute it was hard to say whether the 4th transnational partners’ meeting and Short-Term Joint Staff Training Event will be taking place, since they were both scheduled for the begging of March of 2020, which was the time when the global pandemic began. Fortunately, since all partners were working closely with each other and adhered to all official guidelines, the consortium managed to carry it out. Due to known risk factors of selected participants and rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases in specific regions of the EU, right before the event Hungarian and French teams announced that they will be absent, however they did take part in all discussions and decision making via e-mail correspondence and skype. The host organization (Praxis GmbH, Germany) provided all necessary technical equipment, thus face-to-face communication had been replaced with an online one. This experience proved that technology has evolved so much in recent years that working remotely does not necessarily have to impact output - in fact, remote opportunities are becoming more and more apparent, thus we chose to preserve this as a chance for the improvement of digital communication skills through replacing in-person meetings with teleworking.
Moreover, because of the increased risk of coronavirus infection and worldwide quarantine, the 5th transnational project partners’ meeting was an online one – it was held via “Zoom” online communication tool that allowed all partners to participate in the meeting. Similar meetings are regularly held to facilitate effective communication, as well as oversee project management and implementation activities.
A further challenge all partners acknowledge is the uncertainty about COVID-19, including in terms of the scale and pace of infection. At the moment, no one really knows for how long quarantine measures will be applied and how widespread will the lock-down be. Also, there is always a risk of a second or third wave infections as the virus moves around the globe. What is clear is that the virus and its aftermath will likely be with us for some time and that the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic. That is why we find it extremely important to pay special attention to development of online communication and online learning tools such as “Office Eco Consultant” E-learning platform. The aforementioned Interactive E-learning Portal will be available in 7 languages (English, French, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish) and will enable target group members not only to study all 6 developed modules, but also to take self-evaluation tests and communicate with trainers.
To sum up, in an unprecedented global health crisis – the 2020 pandemic of COVID-19 – the international co-operation is stills needs to keep flowing. The consortium has proven itself capable of adapting to new changes and thriving despite inconveniences – all partners were able to contribute to all project implementation stages and so far all foreseen tasks have been accomplished as expected.
„Office Eco Consultant“(2018-1-LT01-KA204-047022) – a Strategic Partnership, financed by the European Commission in the framework of the ERASMUS+, KA2 Programme.
For more information please visit the website of our project: https://eccooffice.eu/(link is external), where you can find all relevant information and news regarding the implementation of the project as well as subscribe to our newsletter.
Prepared by:
Northtown Technology Park, ECCO project coordinator Danguolė Boguševičienė, experience in preparation and implementation of international projects since 1998.
Northtown Technology Park, project coordinator assistant Joana Ščerbinknaitė assistance in development and implementation of international projects, experience in organizing international events since 2016.
