WELCOME TO EUROPEAN STORIES

“WELCOME TO EUROPEAN STORIES” PROJECT: THE IMPORTANCE OF STORIES FOR OLD PEOPLE

The Senior University of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has coordinated the learning project Grundtvig, called Welcome to European Stories. It has been financed by the Autonomous Body of European Educational Programmes in the call of 2012-2014 (www.stories.eu) together with the involvement of Poland (Niza), Austria (Graz) and Turkey (Isparta). During the two years of the project, technicians, teachers and students of the UCM, together with associations and European cultural centres, have shared experiences through the creation and interpretation of stories made by adults.

Six work meetings have taken place in the partner countries. The advances of the activities developed jointly in the different countries have been shared: creation and selection of stories, introduction to the storyteller’s techniques, staging of the winning story, research about the teaching methods that use stories as a learning strategy for adults, etc. Cultural and training activities have been organized in the meetings, whose purpose was to build bridges between several cultures, foster learning in adults and throughout life.

From the countless results that have been obtained, the students of the Senior University of the UCM have underlined the creation of a Digital Book, La vida en un recuerdo, with a total of forty-eight stories that tell unforgettable moments of their lives, and an initiative of Cuentavidas (www.cuentavidas.com/en under construction), where students share memories of their lives through videos that serve as the basis for future story telling.

Marcos Roca Sierra, Academic Director of the Senior University of the UCM and coordinator of the project, stresses the professional and human side of all the people responsible for the project, creating an atmosphere of closeness, kindness and profesionalism in all the meetings.

The bonds forged between the participants of the project during these years have encouraged partners to design future collaborations, with the purpose of offering a European space where knowledge and experiences are exchanged between the participants. In this way, the interpersonal and intergenerational relations are fostered through the real experiences of adults and collectives at risk of social exclusion.

Senior University UCM

www.ucm.es/mayores

Further information on:

Marcos Roca Sierra

Academic Director of the Senior University UCM

Rosimar Guardia Medina

Tutor and Responsable for the Area of Research

Senior University programme

Complutense University of Madrid

Tel. 91 394 77 03/7701

Web. www.ucm.es/mayores