Download - TRAMP - Arbeit und Leben DGB/VHS

Foreword
At a workshop in Prague, a French colleague who had just arrived posed the
question as to whether a project such as TRAMP could really make a vital
contribution in solving society’s problems or whether it would merely accumulate
a host of problems. He met with a vehement reaction, and rightly so.
Mobility of the elderly is a topic which is becoming increasingly more important
in view of current demographic trends. New possibilities of funding have
therefore been created in order to promote an elderly exchange within Europe.
For the last two years, we have been working on an EU-funded project
called TRAMP TRAnsnational Mobility of older People – working in manual
teamwork projects.
The aim of the project was to facilitate access to Europe for elderly people
with limited foreign language skills, and to increase transnational mobility of
elderly people within Europe. At the core, there were transnational manual
work projects for people willing to work on a voluntary basis. In addition, the
participation of younger people created an intergenerational approach.
The results of the project speak for themselves. We have people who have
become active and who have discovered mobility within Europe, people for
who in this past this was not possible. We are talking about people with few
language skills and who do not have the necessary means to afford services
such as translators, people who had to be won over to the idea of an exchange
programme which in turn, would only be feasible with a rigid programme
structure providing the necessary security for such an adventure. The feedback
from those involved proved the success of this venture. Supporting factors
in the background made it possible to communicate with one another
even beyond the language barriers. In this case, the supporting factors were
the manual work-oriented projects as well as the intergenerational approach
with TRAMP.
They have made a central contribution to the success of the whole project
and opened a field of learning which has enormous potential for the citizens
of Europe.
Regina Schumacher-Goldner
Chairwoman Arbeit und Leben DGB/VHS NW, Director of the Volkshochschule
Hamm, the municipal adult education Center.
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