Final partner meeting in Stavanger

After the final conference in Sofia the TANDEM project partners met for a last partner-meeting from November 14 to 15 2011 in Stavanger (Norway). The municipality Stavanger organized the meeting in their premises, where also numerous trainings for trainees and trainers took place. During a round-tour the project partners learned a lot about the building’s history and the first educational establishments in Stavanger.
Then the partners discussed about the completed projects, and interchanged interesting aspects concerning the distribution activities, and information about the service capacity in one’s own country was elucidated. A very important final point was also to settle open questions concerning the final report. An enjoyable dinner in the historic city of Stavanger brought the project partner once again together. “We enjoyed work a lot and see a big potential in the further use of TANDEM”, said Helmut Kronika (BEST), project coordinator.

TANDEM visits Nijmegen

The fourth TANDEM project meeting was held from Tuesday, 12th April, to Wednesday, 13th April, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. All partners met in order to discuss the results of the TANDEM pilot activities. Up to date, about 100 stories can be found in the TANDEM Library.These stories are based on interviews which were conducted by young adults during different VET trainings in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Bulgaria. The young interviewers talked to older individuals with a migration background about skills and competences they had acquired and/or improved in one of the five work sectors defined by the TANDEM partnership: agriculture, construction/building, tourism, manufacturing and retail, health and social services.

At the beginning, the young adults felt insecure as most of them didn’t have any experience in interviewing others; additionally, they weren’t familiar with the interactive electronic library. Some of them had start-up difficulties in establishing contacts with older migrants: Their interview partners represented a different generation and often talked about their migration history and  past work life in an emotional way. Sometimes language barriers complicated the discussion of competences and skills. in addition However, after some time the young adults grew in confidence and both interviewers and interviewees reported that they learned a lot from their tandem partners. The interviewees often weren’t aware of all the competences they had acquired during their work history. They realized how much they actually knew and how diverse their skills were.

As in TANDEM’s predecessor project European Generation Link, young and old wrote down the stories together and uploaded them on the TANDEM Library. Support was provided by their VET teachers, trainers and guidance counsellors who also had the chance to evaluate the TANDEM products. In general, participants found that the TANDEM products were very useful, informative, well-structured and motivating. A Norwegian participant said: “It was very exciting to hear Jaman’s life story. It has opened my eyes to the many stories of immigrants around the world.”

During the next months, video and audio files are going to be added to the stories in the TANDEM Library. Finally, the partnership also agreed on the next meeting which is going to be held in Sofia, in September 2011. Concretely, a conference for an international audience will be organized there to present the project products and results achieved by then.

The third TANDEM project meeting

Our third meeting was held in Brussels, from September 22-23.

At this stage of the project, project outcomes and products are ready to be shown to VET teachers, trainers, guidance counsellors and stakeholders in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Bulgaria. Already more than 50 stories of people who migrated to these four countries and talk about their work life, competences they have gained and applied in different situations in manufacturing, retail, tourism, construction/ building, health care or agriculture can be found in the TANDEM library at this moment. VET teachers, trainers and guidance counsellors who are looking for new motivating possibilities to introduce intergenerational and cultural topics in work relevant situations can find respective information in the TANDEM guidelines. These offer general information on diversity, managing cultural diversity and provide pedagogical input. Among other useful aspects, they include handouts offering sample questions to brainstorm and work on competences and skills their learners will need to include in a job application.

In the Brussels workshop, the project partners defined respective criteria and an evaluation frame to consider in the next months before they will meet in the Netherlands to discuss outcomes and results anew. The coming months will be particularly dedicated to organising even more tandem interviews bringing together young learners who are somehow involved in one of the mentioned work sectors (or want to start their career in one of them) and, on the other hand, elder people showing migration background and living in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece or Bulgaria.

If you belong to one of the groups mentioned above and are interested in participating in such TANDEM pilot activities, please contact the project coordinator or the project partner in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece or Bulgaria (see contact details in respective language section).

Tur-til-Flor-og-fjaere, Sept.9th

After the first TANDEM interviews, the young interviewers went on a tour together. See the TANDEM interviewers in Stavanger.

Developer workshops

For the development of the two main TANDEM products, the TANDEM didactic guidelines and the TANDEM library, the target country partners have started organising workshops. Such, teachers, trainers, guidance counsellors and course designers will be invited to participate in the product development. Their input is seen as milestone for the next steps: the production of work life stories young deprived learners record for the TANDEM library of elder people with migration background. In Stavanger, e.g. 8 apprentices being trained in health & child care, care for elderly or secretary work met in a first workshop in May 2010 to discuss how they could use EUROPASS CV to make their competences and skills transparent. They engaged in role plays simulating interviews talked about how to find and motivate elder immigrants willing to talk about their daily routine or differences at workplaces in Norway and in their former home. In addition, the workshop participants were also informed on how the stories could be up-loaded onto the TANDEM library. (Below some pictures taken at two meetings in Norway.)

First workshop

The TANDEM project partners met April 8th and 9th, 2010 in Rogaland’s capital, Stavanger (Norway), to discuss the development of the TANDEM internet-based library, the Handbook and the didactic Guidelines, the project's main products. Since this project is based on a prior Grundtvig project called “European Generation Link” (www.european-generation-link.org) outcomes produced there shall be transferred both geographically and thematically to vocational education. The partners consist of some involved in the initial project – coming from Austria, Germany and Belgium - and new “target country” partners in Norway, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Greece. At this workshop, research work performed by the new partners since the project’s kick-off meeting in January was discussed. The main outcomes relate to the work sectors the TANDEM project selected to focus on, i.e. agriculture, construction/building, tourism, manufacturing and retail, as well as health and social services. Educational provision, requirements and needs that should be considered in the development work of this project were defined.

Kick off in Vienna

The kick-off meeting for our new Leonardo project TANDEM was held in Vienna January 7th – 8th, 2010. In the meeting, the partnership focused on important issues about the work plan foreseen, especially in terms of how to organise for the planned transfer of original products. These, coming from the successful Grundtvig project European Generation Link ( www.european-generation-link.org), were presented by Helmut Kronika, the coordinator of both the original and transfer project. TANDEM will adapt existing models and materials for use in vocational training in the target countries selected: Norway, Netherlands, Greece and Bulgaria. Next steps in the project will deal with analysing the specific situations and conditions in the four target countries, in order to prepare the ground for successful adaptation and implementation of TANDEM approaches.

Important aspects about aims and framework of the LdV Transfer of Innovation Programme were presented by Mrs Anne Hunderi from SIU, the Norwegian National Agency administrating the programme.

Dissemination in the target countries

The project promoter, Stavanger Kommune, organised for 33 teachers from Norway a visit to Malmö (Sweden). From May 5th to 6th 2011, they met with managers of schools in Malmö and 7 principals of vocational education training schools to present the project and discuss the TANDEM Library. Furthermore, they also visited four different schools to talk about the TANDEM project and distributed the project flyers to interested audience.
In Trondheim, Stavanger Kommune also presented the project to the network for training in the public sector, May 2nd. More information about this  and the TANDEM project can be found on the network's website.
Stavanger Kommune presents TANDEM at conference on integration Between the consortium meetings, Stavanger Kommune organised internal workshops, meetings and participated with TANDEM at a conference on integration issues, March 19th, 2010. 800 employers of Stavanger Kommune visited this event which was also broadcasted. Representatives of Stavanger Kommune informed about the project's objectives, targeted outcomes and results.

5 trainers met in Stavanger, April 8th 2011, to learn more about the TANDEM project during presentations, dedicated to a day of being an instructor and role model, like Marco Elsafadi.

In Greece, RACTI presented the TANDEM project in general with its outputs at the first meeting of the national VAB committee which took place in Patras in December 2011.Like the TANDEM project, the VAluing experience Beyond the University (VAB) project is co-financed by the European Lifelong Learning subprogram “Leonardo da Vinci”. Offering good synergies, this occasion was selected to present TANDEM as VAB aims at proposing a pedagogical tool together with an e-training that shall allow university teachers to take competences acquired via non-formal/formal learning outside university into account in their student's evaluations

Other dissemination events