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TRAMP – Transnational Mobility of Older People in Europe
Evaluation of the experiences of the exchanges in Hamm, Oberhausen, Metz and Prague
– practice recommendations
• The testing of facilitated project access is improved due to the group composition with a
contingent of new participants. A few participants had already had intercultural contacts, but
rarely such in-depth ones.
• The advantages of the method application (manual work and intergenerational approach)
were discussed: The potential of volunteers in a European context is broadened by people with
no foreign language skills. The added value for Europe lies in the fact that volunteers who were
previously active on a local or regional level now have the option of a European voluntary service.
Europe should be built from the bottom up and not from the top down. The TRAMP project
or the subprojects in the manual work areas visualise Europe, also within the community.
• L´outil en Main: The responsible colleague faced a problem regarding the organisation of the
project: she was supposed to choose the people in order to delegate them to the various projects,
but she herself was not invited to an exchange. Therefore she only received information on
those volunteers who reported to her. It was therefore rather complicated to fully understand
and organise the project.
• Socio-touristic excursions were conducted during all exchanges. Personal invitations by the
hosts were discussed regarding insights into the host country. One of the methods that was
emphasised was “Fluid Sitting“, in which participants sit in systematically mixed international
groups during their evening meal. At the beginning this method proved to be difficult, but in
the end it worked very well.
• The role of children and adolescents was discussed. The question was whether this meant an
accumulation of problems. It was said to be quite difficult to work with the elderly and children
simultaneously. The adequate age of the children was discussed. For the interpreting jobs in particular,
as e.g. in Zbraslav, older adolescents would be required. Regarding the manual work, the
age of the children did not pose a problem, as the example demonstrated where adolescents and
French participants worked with a pad saw. The age of the children would be less of a problem
than the large quantity, which is caused due to the participation of entire and sometimes large
classes. It would be easier to include the children in their normal school environment. In an
unknown environment, as e.g. in Vigny, the children do not work in their own interests such as
the school yard. In any case, the continuous coaching by the teachers and the inclusion in subprojects
by the group participants would be positive. The children should be prepared for the
elderly and the elderly prepared for cooperation with children. The start of the project should
be of great importance: if participants spend too much time searching for groups and tools,
then the adults will not look after the children, who in turn will develop their own project. It is
important that subprojects are executed and completed together with the elderly.
38 Part 1