Coordinated by Kaunas region Third Age University, GGA (Go Get Award) project is about older people’s volunteering, uniting five partners from five countries. It is targeting both adult educators involved in older adult education and older people as volunteers. Project Number: 2020-1-LT01-KA204-077966, Duration: 1.10.2020 – 31.1.2023

Partnership:

Kaunas region Third Age University, Lithuania (co-ordinator)

Slovenska univerza za tretje življenjsko obdobje, Slovenia

S.A.F.E. Projects, Netherlands

University of Ruse Angel Kanchev, Bulgaria

Vecmaminas.lv, Latvia

About (older) volunteering  in the eyes of the project partners

“We need to think big. Volunteering is means by which ordinary people can use their human rights to best effect. Think of the right of assembly, the right of freedom expression, the right to work together, to achieve, etc. Those human rights are embodied in volunteering and social activism and that’s how many people without realising it use their human rights, their civil rights to good effect. Civil organisations need to show that they are proud to be engaging in volunteering, they need to do more publicly to recognise their volunteers….” (Liz Burns former international President of IAWE)

The GGA project partners have internalised  Liz Burns’s thoughts written down in the Conceptual background of the project. They firmly believe that older citizens should not be only allowed but, to the contrary, encouraged to contribute to important decision making processes while taking up their part of the responsibility for the successful functioning of society. Moreover, partners are convinced that education can and will contribute to better older volunteering having a strong impact on all: the targeted adult educators, older volunteers and community. The transformational effect of this GGA project has been felt from its very beginning.

Now, the GGA project is basically developing  an educational TOOLKIT enabling educators to help older volunteers  to change the outdated image of inactive, frail and declining older people, much the type of image that these viral CORONA times have made eve more present. Further, the Toolkit will make educators familiar with the topic and scope of older adult volunteering as well as with the educational activities aiming at the empowerment of older volunteers and volunteering organisations.

Educational programme on volunteering

Older people, participants in the educational Award programme supported by this Toolkit will become familiar with the nature and possible areas of volunteering, with how to organise volunteering and make it visible, how to distribute the volunteering roles. They will become more knowledgeable aboutthe important role (older) volunteers play in today’s local communities and indeed entire society. Volunteering will be presented through the narrations of volunteers enrolled in the Award Programme both written and filmed and a Brochure containing stories of visible volunteers from each country. Partners namely believe that narrations are the best way to come closer to potential volunteers and convince them that becoming volunteers is a good choice, a choice that matters.

For European Union volunteering is an important social activity leading to a more cohesive society based on the basic European values: respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law.

In short, volunteering is not based on mere goodwill and a good heart as it is often believed and claimed. It requires “professionalisation” i.e. education, research, standards, know-how, knowledge, skills, competencies. Volunteering needs to be to be heard and seen and recognised since  exists only when  others are aware of its distinctive existence.

Dr. Dušana Findeisen, Slovenian Third Age University

Dušana Findeisen, former university teacher in the field of andragogy currently Head of the Institute for Research and Development of Education within Slovenian Third Age University has been involved in education of older people and older workers, in the education for better literacy, management of civil society organisations, community education, intergenerational learning, intergenerational sports, language education, education for interpersonal relationships, dyslexia, relationships between ageing processes and urban environment, social inclusion of older people, education for older people's volunteering and local development in former Yugoslavia Slovenia as well as many European countries ever since 1984. In 1986 she co-established Slovenian Third Age University of which was  the president for 15 years. She has been managing European projects for the last 25 years. She wrote 5 monographs and several hundred articles.