As the Covid-19 outbreak continues, it has not only significantly affected home and family life, it has also forced everyone to adapt to new ways of working and pushed adult educators to explore and adopt new online tools and techniques to allow them continue their training and learning activities.  

EPALE now has a more crucial role than ever before to support and connect the adult learning community. Our platform is a place where the community can come together to share ideas, tools, resources and training to help each other to get through this crisis. Many could benefit from the expertise and experience of others in the passionate and professional adult education community.

As a response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, EPALE has put together a comprehensive strategy to help the community including the following initiatives:

EPALE INTERVIEWS
We are introducing a new format to be addressed by the blog posts: interviews to investigate the digital learning opportunities that are available during the Covid-19 crisis and explore ways to overcome barriers to access. We will investigate with different experts specific aspects of access to digital learning, active citizenship, social inclusion, mobility and learning/training provision for different targets. Interesting and specific professional pathways will be shared with the community to deepen the different shades of adult learning, especially in the times of Covid-19. Our aim is to share a broad spectrum of expertise and to involve experts with different backgrounds and from different countries.

EPALE COMMUNITY STORIES
This is the time to connect, share and inspire each other on EPALE! 
In order to kick-start this community collaboration, we are opening a call for the whole adult learning community to share their experiences, problems and solutions on e-learning, online teaching and virtual mobility. This is a chance to share ideas and encourage positive actions, not to be overwhelmed by this pandemic but to take inspiration from each other in a challenging time.
The aim of the call is to gather stories, experiences, solutions and give them visibility on the platform and on social media so that the whole community can benefit from it. Stories do not necessarily need to refer to experiences developed during the Coronavirus emergency but should possibly inspire solutions and strategies to enhance e-learning opportunities, online teaching and re-thinking of adult learning provision.
We’re looking forward to hearing your story!

RESOURCE KIT
EPALE is a goldmine! The platform is very rich in content and now the time has come to explore the huge amount of resources and opportunities available. This downtime is an ideal opportunity for upskilling and personal development, and EPALE provides a wealth of training and best practice resources that can help adult learning professionals to learn new skills and deepen their expertise. To help you with that, please welcome the brand new Resource Kit initiative! This will consist of a series of PDF Resources Kits that package and promote resources, tools and best practice around the delivery of adult education opportunities through distance learning.

ONLINE DISCUSSION
On Wednesday 27 May, 2020 starting from 10 a.m. CEST, EPALE will be hosting an online discussion on the educational response to the need for distance learning provision. How are training and learning providers addressing the consequences of the disruption caused by Covid-19? Take part in this debate and share your expertise. Get involved in sharing knowledge and points of view! Have you been or are you currently involved in interesting projects dealing with digital skills and the provision of e-learning? Share your know-how and perspective with the EPALE community!

…and there’s a lot more coming.