“VIRAL for Local Communities” lands in Athens for the last meeting of learning, teaching, training, LTT3, organized simultaneously with mixed mobility, LTT4.
Both LTTs were organized with the willingness and commitment of all to complete this important phase of the project despite the difficult moment that the whole world, including the participating countries, are facing due to the Covid emergency.
The trip to Athens was organized in the smallest details to ensure maximum personal safety for all participants and in compliance with the most stringent anti-Covid regulations. The works took place at the headquarters of HIGGS, a Greek partner, who welcomed us with extreme hospitality, despite the restrictions imposed by compliance with safety regulations. Participants from various countries worked in separate groups by country of origin in order to avoid close contacts between people not belonging to the same team.
A choice shared by all the partners was then to not include the free time planned in the agenda in order to avoid possible situations at risk for the participants. Unfortunately, there were no moments of conviviality and socializing encounters, such as welcome dinners, coffee breaks and collective cultural visits: we hope to be able to find all the protagonists of these LTTs in a better period and free from restrictions.
In any case, each team had the opportunity to manage, by country of origin, their free time, as foreseen in the agenda, and to visit an extraordinary city, cradle of European civilization, thus enriching their cultural background.
Once again the Erasmus Plus program, despite the difficulty of the moment, offered the opportunity to experience a European reality different from one’s own, in a direct experience that undoubtedly enriches much more than any lesson given in a classroom in one’s own country.
We are confident that the emotions of the participants, most of whom were visiting Athens and Greece for the first time, will be transmitted to colleagues who, for personal reasons, have chosen virtual mobility at this time when traveling can expose you to risks.
Precisely to meet everyone’s different needs and therefore allow selected teachers and adult learners to be active part in the training sessions, NKey, leader of the “VIRAL for local Communities” project and expert in technology and innovation, has foreseen, in agreement with the host partner HIGGS, the remote presence of the “virtual” participants, assisted in this difficult phase by the Italian National Agency INDIRE which provided it with the Covid 19 KA2 Addendum and followed its application.
The University for Foreigners of Perugia, in the persons of Professor Daria carmina Coppola and Borbala Samu, researcher, the Polish partner with Professor Kamila Kaminska Sztark and the director of CEBS Beata Partyka as well as Silvia Petre, director of APSES, Romanian partner, were thus able to attend all the trainings carried out together with the other teachers and adult learners present.
During the 5 intense days of work, all aspects of the Tool Box were tested, analyzed, discussed thanks to pilot tests carried out by teachers in presence and remotely on the adult learners present, with excellent feedback from the whole team.
The working group responsible for the quality of the VIRAL website and the Tool Box contained therein, has now the opportunity to further refine the educational material resulting from the intellectual output and proceed with the subsequent phases: that of the actual tests, which will be held in the months of October and November in adult learners’ classes, and the official presentation in the multiplier events that will be organized simultaneously in each partner country: Italy, Poland, Romania and Greece.
Finally, the executive working group has already considered the possibility of organizing the subsequent phases envisaged in the project and the multiplier events themselves in virtual mode, if the health situation in Europe does not allow for face-to-face meetings.
We greet and thank all the participants, real and virtual, for having overcome the difficulties and having participated with enthusiasm in these 5 days of training activities in Athens.
