2017: The Year of Adult Education in Europe

maig 20, 2017

The Power and Joy of Learning

What do we do?

In 2017 EAEA is celebrating the impact and benefits of adult education with the theme “The Power and Joy of Learning”. We bring together European adult education organisations to demonstrate how adult learning can improve citizens’ lives and prospects in Europe, both on a personal and on a professional level. We invite all the adult education organisations in Europe to join the campaign to highlight the power and joy of learning.

EAEA is collecting events and campaigns organised by adult education organisations across Europe under the campaign ”2017: The Year of Adult Education in Europe – The Power and Joy of Learning”. We want to make adult education activities around Europe visible and offer promotional and advocacy support for them.


Manifesto for Adult Learning in the 21st Century

The EAEA Manifesto is the basis for this celebration. We encourage our members to choose a topic or all the topics from the Manifesto to promote in their events. The topics of the Manifesto are:

Active citizenship, democracy and participation. People who participate in adult education have more trust in the political system, participate more in society, by voting, by volunteering or taking active roles in communities.

Life skills for individuals. Adult learners feel healthier, lead healthier lifestyles, build new social networks and experience improved well-being.

Social cohesion, equity and equality. Adult education provides many opportunities to equalise societies on a larger scale and to create fairer societies as well as more economic growth.

Employment and digitalization. Workplace learning is one of the key drivers for adults’ participation in lifelong learning. At the cusp of enormous digital changes, adult education can help in closing the digital gap.

Migration and demographic change. Civic education and intercultural learning can create integration-friendly cultures. Language and basic skills training will enable migrants to become active citizens in their new home countries. Learning seniors are more active, volunteer more, work longer and are healthier.

Sustainability. From environmentally friendly consumption and transport to energy efficiency, European citizens need a lot of information and innovative spaces to develop new lifestyles, new projects, new approaches. Adult education can help provide the information, the debate spaces and the creativity.

European policies. Adult education contributes to main European strategies in the field of growth, employment, innovation, equity, social cohesion, active citizenship, poverty reduction, climate change, internal market, migration, peace and more.


How do we do it?

  • We invite members (+ other CSOs) to join the campaign with their events, to link them to the Manifesto or to organise an event around the Manifesto.
  • We publish, link and promote the events on our website.
  • We collect the event organisers’ key messages after the event, share them and bring them to policy-makers.
  • We finalise the year with a celebration in Brussels in December 2017.

Join the campaign!

To become a part of this pan-European campaign:

1) Share your events!
2) Link your event to one or several Manifesto topics or build an event around it!
3) Use our logo and link it to your event materials! 
4) Use our #YearAE2017 hashtag! 
5) Collect the 3 key messages and best practices of your event and share them with us!

Read the full instructions on the How to join section!