Connecting Through Cultural Heritage (CONNECTAGE) is Antalya Vocational Institution’s Erasmus+ Project to connect people, to share information and form a relationship between people to imagine and feel new aspects.

Antalya Vocational Institution is a traditional and public Adult Education Center that aims to research our cultural values, especially traditional arts and clothing culture, and while preserving the originals, transfer them to future generations.

The institution has courses to train qualified personnel to take place in the sector in parallel with technological development. Besides the institution also gives 2-year courses on food and beverage, modeling and design for clothing, pottery, glass, and jewelry design,  for adults of all ages.

The adult learners come from different cultural backgrounds but most of the students are the women who have not worked in an official business before. They are enthusiastic about doing their own business, they have great ideas however they do not know where to start.   Older adults use social media platforms to learn, grow, and connect with like-minded individuals. They use social media to research and read. They need to develop themselves and their capacity by using social media and web sites to enhance their entrepreneurial skills. They need to turn their ability (cooking, modeling, sewing..etc) into opportunities that create enduring value and income for their life.

CONNECTAGE Project aims to give information and develop adult education through cultural heritage aspects such as artworks, motifs, techniques and within this period improve adult digital literacy in social platforms. Adult learners share their motifs that come from their grandmother’s wooden chest and they learn how to transfer these motifs into their modeling techniques and share them on social platforms. Our teachers integrate these aspects of CONNECTAGE Project into their lessons and they teach adult learners and skilled qualified workers how to earn and work up their new digital skills in order to start and grow their ideas.  “Connecting Through Cultural Heritage” Project enhances our school courses with the integration of lessons such as using social media as an entrepreneur, how to develop their business on the net, setting up a website, transferring social media accounts into the business.