Empathy

Empowerment through Empathy in Non-formal Education

Empowerment through Empathy in NEF is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership, based on the exchange of good practices, that fits the two EU priorities of social inclusion and adult education, being a real opportunity for extending and developing educators’ competences in NEF.

The role of emotional literacy is the cornerstone of this Project. As Golleman states, the emotional literacy, is an ability to read and (re)write oneself, in the sense of the narrative or life story that each tells of himself and to himself. This history is built up in interaction with the world and reflects the ability to understand, express and manage own emotions and respond appropriately to the emotions of others. On this history any human being bases the way that relates to the world, and to himself, enabling (or not) the exercise of his citizenship, his motivation for personal learning and transformation.

For this reason, it is needed to create innovative approaches, where the emotional preparation of the technicians is explored in order to allow professionals a greater knowledge of themselves, a greater creativity.

While each social context of the partner countries involved has its own peculiarities, all technicians confront situations that require them to be able to adjust to a changing reality, to manage their frustration, to find within of themselves strategies to deal creatively and flexibly with the response needs of a socially challenging Europe.

Preparing professionals better, giving them tools and intervention strategies, embodied in reflection and their creative capacity, it is possible to benefit the target audience with whom they work and improve their practices in a more sustained way.

The main objective of the project is the creation of a pilot training course, which should be applied and disseminated to other professionals in this area, in each of the partner countries. The pilot training course can encourage the technicians to free themselves from a series of roles that unconscionably condition their professional conduct. It is also added as innovator in the project the possibility of applying the pilot Training course to the most vulnerable groups, with appropriate adjustments.

The results of this project are:

– Creating a learning environment based on collaborative and participatory methodologies through transnational cooperation activities;

– Training 12 professionals, from partner organisations, involved in a process of self-reflection about themselves and their practices;

– Designing of a pilot training course in emotional literacy, incorporating the skills and experiences of each partner: in this sense, the incorporation of the methodologies used by each of the different partners in the most vulnerable public intervention, are merged in a training model that promotes emotional literacy of technicians;

– 60 adult educators (15 from each partner country) trained from the pilot training course, able to disseminate this intervention model.

The consortium comprises 4 partners from Portugal, Italy, Poland and Denmark.