Mobility has always been the core of most of the programs promoted by the European Union, becoming a real pedagogical path over the past few years. Mobility, indeed, doesn’t only mean to leave and get to know other European contexts, but it includes a preparation and self-knowledge period before the departure, that will be enhanced after the experience abroad. As a matter of fact, the participant to the mobility action is more self-confident, more aware of his limits and his resources and, because of this, he knows how to enhance and use them for the better in the context he belongs to.
CESIE – Center for European Studies and Initiatives – has always used mobility as the main tool of its actions, sending abroad hundreds of young people over the past few years looking for a professional experience or simply for a volunteering experience, in a moment of their life in which they feel the need to focus on themselves and, at the same time, on the local and European community they belong to. Within this action, our association has developed several support and help tools during the mobility experience, in order to ease the experience itself for both the direct users and the managers. For this reason, CESIE has been partner of the TAPT project – Transfer of Administrative and Pedagogical Tools useful to manage mobility projects (Lifelong Learning Programme – Leonardo da Vinci – Transfer Of Innovation) for about one year: together with other organizations that made mobility one of their specific actions – the French association coordinating the project ADICE and the partners Projinal (Turkey) and Paragon Limited (Malta) – we are testing some tools and procedures to systematize in the best way the non formal learning process in mobility. Participants to all our European mobility programs are involved in a specific learning path starting from an information meeting before the departure, following the participants during the whole preparation session up to the experience abroad. When they come back home, this is not the end of this path, but just a further orientation to those things learned during the mobility project and an assessment of its outcomes with hindsight. In the last partners meeting in Malta on July 7th to 10th 2013, we took stock of the situation and we boosted the development of the materials already shared, increasing the cooperation between partners and improving the results in the adaptation phase.
Therefore, CESIE keeps up the completion of this path, thanks to the continuous feedback of its participants and the partners involved in the project, so as to ensure a mobility experience answering comprehensively to the learning needs of the participants.
For further information on mobility opportunities offered by CESIE and about the TAPT project, please contact alberto.biondo@cesie.org
