“Training for Inclusion” was the second European project approved by BioLiving and was co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme.

With BioLiving's evolution and growth as an association, there is also a growing need to empower the BioLiving community with specific skills ranging from adult education and training and social inclusion to project management and improving language skills. Although we are a small association, our ambition is for our actions to have a positive impact at European and global level and we believe that the professionalisation of our technical staff will not only strengthen the association's chances of internationalisation, but will also make us more competent and professional in our field of action. A more competent association will result in faster, more conscious and higher quality work to transform society for the environment.

In this way, the ‘Training for Inclusion’ project enabled our members most directly involved in our adult training projects to go on 20 structured training trips that not only covered a wide variety of the association's pedagogical needs, but also a large number of countries and cultural realities.

All these employees were contacted in advance about the project and the opportunity to take part in training. After demonstrating their interest in taking part in the project, the employees went through a selection process based on criteria such as: justification of the need for the training; motivation to take part and to share the knowledge acquired after the training; potential impact of the training on personal skills and on the association itself; language skills; diversity of topics covered by the training courses as a whole.

Each mobility was also followed by an internal training session, where the mobility participant shared the technical knowledge they had acquired and their reflections on the international experience with the entire association community.

This project has brought clear collective benefits to the association and its educational processes and, consequently, to all the people, organisations and communities we work with. From the very first visits and throughout the 20 visits that have taken place, the BioLiving Association has already been able to implement a number of changes and improvements to its educational practices that have resulted directly from the lessons learnt by the participants. The benefits have also been evident on an individual level for the participants, who have also had the opportunity to exchange knowledge with colleagues from several different countries and to experience very enriching cultural experiences.

To find out more about the mobilities carried out, you can consult the news about this project here. You can also read more about the results of the project here.