Socrates Programme (EU)

Exchange House was delighted to be included in the Socrates Programme, Minerva-ODL and ICT “Alpha-Beta” and the Socrates Programme-GRUNDTVIG General European Co-operation Project, "Alpha–to–Omega", both projects funded by the European Union under the Socrates programme. Exchange House acknowledges the assistance and support of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee (CDVEC) and the National Adult Literacy Association (NALA) in the development and piloting of the modules under both strands of the Alpha Programme. The duration of the two projects is two years commencing 1 October 2006 and concluding 30 September 2008.



Minerva - Alpha Beta
“New methods for services towards illiterates in adult education”.
This project will develop and test innovative methods for adult education for illiterates in Europe and will focus on alternative forms of learning and acquisition of competencies for illiterates based on their learning needs. The ability of reading and writing will not be an objective of the project.

“Alpha-Beta” will enable adult education providers to apply new methods of teaching and knowledge acquisition for illiterates using modern communication technology. This method will not require any reading and writing skills but will build upon visual, graphical and pictorial information. These new resources will be developed according to the special needs and learning desires of people facing problems in reading, writing and general literacy.

Ireland (Exchange House Travellers Service) has been partnered with Germany, Austria, Greece, Italy and Romania. Working meetings have been held in Germany, Romania, Greece, Ireland, Italy and the concluding meeting will be held in Austria.

Exchange House has developed modules on Fire Safety at work, Substance Misuse and Emergency Services using the mobile phone as a tool for independent learning with visual images, text and symbols to progress on to the next step and ultimately recognising words by association with the graphics. The target group is adults who are participants in employment-related education and training programmes and who have difficulty in reading text. To date the modules on Fire Safety at Work and Substance Misuse have been successfully piloted.

Modules by the other partners include: Prevention of smoking (Prolepsis – Greece); Healthy Living - Shopping (ANUP – Romania); Sexual Education, infectious diseases (IEIE – Germany); Making Technology work (all partners)

GRUNDTVIG – General European Co-operation Project,
“Alpha-to-Omega”
“New pathways towards volunteering and life long learning for ‘Senior’ European citizens”
The “Alpha-to-Omega” project is targeting elderly citizens and senior migrants who are disadvantaged due to their social, ethnic or educational background and will introduce disadvantaged senior European citizens to forms of life long learning through social participation. “Alpha-to-Omega” aims to increase the acquisition of knowledge, proficiencies and competencies of adults through inter-generational dialogue. The methods embrace inter-generational task based learning during which senior citizens in partnership with young people will be dealing with challenges facing European society.

During the project senior citizens will come to understand that they have a vast potential of knowledge and competencies which they can transfer to the younger generation in a shared learning environment. “Alpha-to-Omega” has developed modules of adult learning for senior citizens which will identify new pathways to adult education, and will facilitate the access of the elderly to adult learning in Europe. It will also introduce innovative learning methods to providers of adult education.

Ireland (Exchange House Travellers Service) has been partnered with Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece and Romania. Working meetings have been held in Germany, Romania, Greece and Ireland and will conclude with the final meeting in Austria in September.

Ireland (Exchange House) has successfully piloted a ‘Living History’ module with older women from the Travelling Community in an intergenerational learning project.

“The Irish Government’s White Paper on Adult Education ‘ Learning for Life’ stresses that ‘education’ and ‘learning’ is not confined to the formal school education but is something that goes on throughout the life cycle and in formal and informal settings and ways.”

Exchange House has followed this directive in this module by sharing knowledge on skills, attitudes, traditions, culture and values in an intergenerational setting. The module also helped the older generation to reflect on the value of their knowledge, their skill in communication and their use of language and to realise that it provided a valuable resource for the younger generation and also that lifelong learning for seniors is for liberation and not for dependency.

Modules by the other partners include: Literature, Technology and Media (IEIE - Germany); Cultural heritage (Vivre ȁ Kokelberg – Belgium); Love and Partnership, Photography and Music (ANUP – Romania); Safe use of Medication and Safety at Home (Prolepsis – Greece); Volunteering (Akzente – Austria)

Exchange House is delighted to be associated with the Socrates Programme through the Minerva and Grundtvig Projects. Participating in the transnational projects provided useful contacts with other European countries. The modules will be translated into a number of other European languages.

To find out more about the Minerva and Grundtvig projects, contact the Education Department at Exchange House.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained there in.

Dieses Projekt wurde mit Unterstützung der Europäischen Kommission finanziert. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt dieser Veröffentlichung (Mitteilung) trägt allein der Verfasser; die Kommission haftet nicht für die weitere Verwendung der darin enthaltenen Angaben.

For additional information on the EU Alpha-Beta and
Alpha-Omega Projects please visit
www.alpha-eu.de