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1. Message from the chairperson
Dear friends
and colleagues,
I hope all
DARE members who attended the seminar in Antwerp returned home with new ideas
and confidence in the growing importance and consolidation of our network. Thank
you all for your active interest, for your energies and ideas you provided.
Hopefully we’ll meet again in April when we plan our seminar on ICT in HRE and
EDC in Budapest.
All DARE members are invited to use this next training
opportunity.
2003 has been an important and decisive year for the
establishment and recognition of DARE. It has been a rapid and also somehow
surprising development which is connected with a lot of challenges in this
initial stage and – I suppose – with some confusion as well. The seminar on
“Perceptions, Perspectives and Challenges of HRE and EDC” in Antwerp made clear,
that there is a strong need for redefining the history and structure of DARE.
Please, let me try again to explain both.
DARE was initiated in August
2002. 12 countries attended the first meeting. They agreed on the necessity of
finding funding possibilities in order to be able to implement common
activities. The most appropriate programme was SOCRATES / Grundtvig 4, which
supports adult education by networking. It was clear that we had to try to apply
for funding within the framework of this programme, which we did. The deadline
for the pre-proposal was the first of November 2002. We invited the founding
members of DARE to participate. They are the so-called “participating
organisations” representing different nations, with a focus on the enlarged
Europe and the twin fields of HRE and EDC.
After the approval of the
pre-proposal in February 2003 we applied in March for the full proposal.
Parallel to this activity the former steering committee tried to attract NGOs,
organisations and institutions of HRE and EDC in many European countries,
including the enlarged Europe, to join the new network.
These candidates
supplied profiles of their organisations and submitted a declaration of
interest, which provided the basis for their approval as members of DARE at the
first General Assembly in June 2003 in Antwerp. Thus the total number of member
organisations is greater than the number of “participating organisations”.
However, all members present at the General Assembly approved the work plan of
the Grundtvig project (October 2003 –September 2006) as binding for future
activities.
We know this is quite a complex structure. Following the
approval of our application for Grundtvig4 by the European Commission, funding
is dependent upon the implementation of the work plan, now legitimised by the
DARE General Assembly. Despite this history of development of DARE, it is the 13
original “participating organisations”, who retain responsibility for the
fulfilment of the work plan in the context of the Grundtvig project, which is
the basis for all the network’s activity, including the newsletter and the
website. However, ALL ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE NETWORK ARE
AVAILABLE TO ALL DARE MEMBERS. This includes attendance of seminars and
conferences and use of the newsletter and website. There is no question of first
or second class membership; nor does this arrangement arising from the
particular historical sequence of events prevent us in any way as a network and
as individual members from developing additional activities, finding new
partners within the network for common project or from introducing new ideas,
concepts or practices. The network needs the competencies, experience and
exchange of ALL members, not only to remain alive, but also to represent
strongly the importance of HRE and EDC as a crucial element of education in
Europe.
I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New
Year
Hannelore
Chiout
(Chair)
In Romania
civics seems to be taken seriously. Both the Ministry of Education and a famous
NGO called Center Education 2000+ have new and hopefully substantive programmes
in the area of civic education:
Corina Leca – CRED, the Romanian
Center for Education and Human Development, December
2003
Triodos Bank is a social bank lending only to organisations and businesses with social and environmental objectives. Triodos Bank is well known for its innovative and transparent approach to banking. Savers at Triodos Bank know where their money is working. Triodos Bank NV was founded in 1980 in the Netherlands and is a fully-licensed independent bank, owned by public shareholders. Triodos Bank belongs to a widespread network of national and international financial institutions active in the social economy.
Triodos Bank
has always been, and remains, about transparency and the realisation of social,
environmental and cultural objectives in day to day banking. This integrated
approach has been fundamental to the Bank since it was established in 1980.
Triodos Bank has been a pioneer and still is a leading innovator in sustainable
banking.
Triodos Bank only finances enterprises which add social,
environmental and cultural value - in fields such as renewable energy,
social housing, complementary health care, fair trade, organic food and farming
and social business. We also finance fair trade and microcredit organisations in
developing countries. We do this with the support of depositors and investors
who wish to contribute to social justice within the context of a more
sustainable economy.
Today, Triodos
Bank has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
In 2004 Triodos Bank intends to open an office in Madrid, Spain. For more information please look at www.triodos.es
More information on the 'European' Triodos Bank: www.triodos.com/
VORMEN, Belgian member of DARE, makes use of the banking services of Triodos Bank since 2001, and was happy to get financial support from Triodos Fund, a Fund related to the bank. The DARE network, wich has been registered under Belgian law, has also its bank account with this bank.
4. A European Year of Citizenship through Education (2005)
A decision on this (Council of Europe) European Year has been taken at the Athens (Greece) meeting of the European ministers of Education, 10-12 November 2003. Quoted from the official document:
"We, the European Ministers of Education of the 48 States Parties to the European Cultural Convention, meeting on the occasion of the 21 st session of the Standing Conference in Athens, from 10 to 12 November 2003, adopt the following Declaration:
(...)
11. Request
the Council of Europe, as an organisation with a wealth of experience in the
fields of managing diversity, intercultural education and quality education, to
tailor its education programme and working methods in order to implement the
following strategies and give fresh impetus to these activities by developing a
coherent, feasible and integrated action plan;
In this connection, it
should:
(...)
i. develop quality assurance instruments inspired by education for democratic citizenship, taking account of the intercultural dimension, and develop quality indicators and tools for self-evaluation and self-focused development for educational establishments;
(...)
12. Call on the Council of Europe to organise a European Year of Citizenship through Education (2005), which will make it possible to capitalise on and implement the achievements of the Council of Europe in the field of education for democracy;
(...)"
The full text of the decision can be found at the Council's EDC webpages.
5. The past DARE seminar: Antwerp (Belgium, December 2003)
From 4-6
December 2003, 24 DARE members came together in Antwerpen, Belgium, to discuss
perpectives and challenges for EDC/HRE. During the seminar it became clear once
again that EDC and HRE have more in common than is often assumed and that DARE
has a bright future ahead of it. Although various participants expressed a
desire for a more interactive seminar, with more room for each member to share
their experiences, the overall impression of the seminar was positive. As one
participant put it: "Despite initial problems we are growing as a
network".
The sessions
during the seminar consisted of a mix of 15-minute presentations from DARE
members about their organisation's work, and small group discussions on
differences and commonalities of EDC/HRE and needs and priorities for DARE. We
learned a lot about EDC/HRE approaches and activities in Croatia, Germany,
Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Romania and the United Kingdom.
One of the
highlights of the seminar was certainly the "interview" session that was
organised on Saturday morning, a classic participatory exercise. Participants
were paired with the assignment to interview each other for five minutes, after
which they had to present their partner to the whole group, which not
surprisingly was a lot of reason for laughter and interesting new perspectives
on colleagues we thought we already knew quite well. (Thank you, Chrissie, for
spontaneously organising this session!)
The seminar
was conluded on Saturday afternoon with a plenary workplanning session. (Thanks
to Judith Neisse for assisting us with this session.) Based on the needs and
priorities identified earlier during the seminar and the requirements of the
Grundtvig grant, a workplan for 2004 was developed. The detailed workplan for
2004 will be shared with members early in the new year.
One of the
specific recommendations made during the seminar was to strengthen communication
among DARE members by setting up listserv. (In the meantime members should have
received the first messages via the new DARE listserv). The seminar ended on
Saturday night with (another) wonderful dinner in a cozy -- "gezellig" in
Flemish -- restaurant in downtown Antwerpen. During this last supper, several
participants already looked ahead to the next seminar on ICTs in Budapest, as
they introduced the basics of SMS text messaging to some of us who are
technologically challenged....
Thanks to Wim,
Sabine, Hannelore and Katrin for making this seminar possible! (The full report
of the seminar, texts of presentations and seminar evaluation results will be
made availble on the DARE website in the months to come.)
6. Your contribution to e-DARE
DARE members can submit articles for eventual publication in e-DARE. Draft publishing guidelines will be issued and communicated via the members listserv. As it is foreseen that the next issue of e-DARE be sent out at about 19 February, we invite you to send in your text a couple of weeks before this date.
7. The next DARE seminar: Budapest (Hungary), 21-25 April 04
Invited: the DARE members
Practicalities of the seminar:
Seminar theme: ICT (information- and communication technologies) in EDC and HRE
The meetings will take place in the European Youth Centre of Budapest (premises belonging to the Council of Europe, directorate Youth and Sports).
A formal invitation (one person per member organisation) and a draft program will be sent out later.
Travel costs, hotel costs and meals for the DARE members are, with certain restrictions, covered by the Grundtvig project. For members from countries who don't belong to the EU Socrates programme, the DARE board hopes to find a solution allowing them to participate at the same conditions. More details about this seminar will be sent as soon as they are available.
| August 2002 | DARE founded
at Sonnenberg / Germany Draft constitution Election of steering committee / decision to apply for Grundtvig 4 |
| November 2002 | Pre-proposal
Grundtvig 4 “DARE – Democracy and Human Rights Education in Adult Learning” with 13 participating organisations Meeting of steering committee: strategy to attract HRE and EDC organisations/ institutions, list of potential candidates |
| January 2003 | Meeting of
steering committee: Review of future members and potential candidates, review of
constitution, preparation of full Grundtvig proposal |
| February 2003 | Presentation
of Grundtvig proposal in Brussels Registration of DARE network in Belgium |
| March 2003 | Submitting of Full Proposal for Grundtvig |
| April 2003 | Funding of
DARE conference in Antwerp, June 2003, by the Belgian Minister of Foreign
Affairs |
| June 2003 | First
conference of the DARE network “Perceptions, Perspectives and Challenges of HRE
and EDC” First General Assembly of DARE network and approval of members (30 organisations in 23 European countries) |
| September 2003 | Approval of
Grundtvig application by the European Commission (10/ 2003 – 9/
2006) |
| October 2003 | Start of activities |
| December 2003 | First session
of permanent working groups (participating organisations) and first seminar (all
DARE members) in the framework of the Grundtvig
project |
"4.1
Recommendations to national authorities:
1. that they should ensure that
there exists in each country a sufficient basis of institutions or NGOs with the
necessary expertise and capacity to support EDC through the provision of policy
advice, curriculum guidance, training of trainers, resource development and
public promotion; "
The full text of the report can be found at the Council of Europe website, which also contains a page with an overview of reports on EDC available.
c) For the Record (adapted from "HR Eye - your e-News from HRI!!", electronic newsletter of Human Rights Internet - www.hri.ca)
[editor's note: for DARE members this website could be interesting because it provides quick access to accurate and up-to-date information on actual human rights evolutions, but also because of its country reports which complement country reports provided by NGO's such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch]
For the Record
(FTR) is an on-going HRI project. FTR is an annual report that brings together
and summarizes all the relevant human rights information generated from within
the United Nations (UN) system and the European Human Rights system. An
important reference and education tool for those active in national and
international social justice movements, the report also aids in simplifying the
human rights work of the UN and the Council of Europe for the uninitiated,
journalists, students, teachers and the general public. Published in English and
French on the Web and on CD-Rom, FTR gathers all UN human rights documents into
one resource, thereby saving individuals hours of research time. It includes
detailed summaries of UN reports, ECHR cases, UN resolutions, and
recommendations that allow users to have a quick and comprehensive review of
country situations and developments on specific issues. Hyperlinks included in
the summaries also give access to the full-text original UN or Council of Europe
documents, making it easy for people to obtain primary sources when needed.
FTR also makes it easy to locate information, especially for those who
are less familiar with the UN and the Council of Europe system and their
terminology, by classifying documents and summaries by country and by theme. The
2002 version of FTR includes the following “hot topics”: Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights; HIV / AIDS; Human Rights Defenders; Impunity; Internally
Displaced Persons; Migrants and Migrant Workers; Terrorism and Human Rights;
Treaty Bodies; Women. For more information on FTR go to the Web site: www.hri.ca/fortherecord
This newsletter is edited by DARE, Democracy and Human Rights Education
in Europe network
Contributions for this newsletter can be sent to: wim.taelman@vormen.org |
DARE correspondence address:
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