ERASMUS+ PROJECT RECRAFT

How can we encourage more people to discover and become interested in cultural heritage? How is the cultural heritage transmitted in different countries through crafts? How to involve adults with disabilities in educational activities related to crafts? These are the key questions that Erasmus+ project RECRAFT (2018-1-HR01-KA204-047455(15/10/2018-14/4/2020) is seeking answers to. The project includes institutions Žemaičių muziejus „ Alka“(Telšiai, Lithuania), Ljudska Univerza Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and Jyvaskylan Kaupunki (Finland) and the coordinator is the Public Open University Zagreb from Zagreb, Croatia. The main goal of the project is to raise awareness of cultural heritage through crafts.

During the project the participating institutions have gotten acquainted with the non-formal adult education activities of the institutions of each country and have exchanged the best practices. Each transnational project meeting had a different topic.

During the first, kick off meeting, each partner presented the situation in partner countries related to preserving cultural heritage through arts and crafts. We learned a lot from each other about the presentation of cultural heritage.

The second meeting in Finland put the focus on marketing strategies in promoting cultural heritage through workshops. Each institution has its own strategies for promotion of such courses, and it was valuable share of practices that we have continued to use.

During the third meeting in Lithuania we exchanged practices in rising the quality of adult non-formal education in this segment. The stress was put on raising educators’ competences in transmitting their knowledge to various types of students, their skills to adjust to different needs of the students and their awareness of different methods they can use during their work.

The last meeting in Slovenia dealt with ways for improving and extending the supply of high-quality learning opportunities in the art craft, tailored to the specific needs of individual adults. Each institution in four partner countries deals with different groups of peoples (unemployed, disabled, migrants, etc.) and each of them requires specific approach in teaching. The share of experience from each institution was very valuable for our future work. 

During the project we conducted a survey among students and teachers about their satisfaction with art craft courses, their motivation to enrol to such courses and the raised knowledge about cultural heritage they get in such courses. The survey revealed that in Finland, Slovenia and Lithuania participants take up such courses to fulfil their free time, as a hobby, while in Croatia participants find it as a very useful way to gain new skills in order to be more competitive on labour market or to start their own business. For all interviewed students, cultural heritage is an integrative part of the course and they learn a lot about their national heritage through from it.

Apart from the survey we collected testimonies from the students of art craft workshops about their satisfaction with the course, the role of cultural heritage in their life and the prospects they expect when they finish the course.

The project also resulted in recommendations we created on these four topics we dealt in the project and that will be available on the web pages of our four partner institutions.