The number of older people is rising in all European countries and the time people spend in retirement with good health conditions is also. At the same time, the interest and desire among older adults to participate in further education increases, too. In all European countries there are efforts to enable aging well, with an emphasis on health, social activity and cultural or learning activities. Many activities for seniors are designed with attendance and thus remain out of reach for several people, among others older adults with mobility restrictions, family commitments, or people from rural areas. Additionally, training offers are usually designed and prepared by professional trainers but do not involve a participatory approach for the target group itself.With regard to the above mentioned points, the aim of the GrandExpertS project is to empower older adults with expertise or skills in a particular field to develop their own high-quality, innovative and interactive ICT based courses to be shared with other seniors. The approach applied is based on innovative pedagogics and practices and includes a well-balanced combination of knowledge transfer and learning from experience. New forms of learning and the use of digital learning technologies make further education accessible for everyone, and support the target group in keeping in pace with technological developments.The activities of the project were centered on three main intellectual outputs, namely 1) Authoring training for the creation of digital content, 2) Innovative, interactive learning platform, and 3) Set of digital, multimedia enriched learning content. In the project 96 older experts were trained to become authors of digital content; among them 35 experts designed, edited and finished microlearning units in which they share their knowledge, skills and experiences. 194 older adults were directly involved in project activities through testing and evaluating the developed materials. In addition to that, more than 130 practitioners and stakeholders from senior organizations and education institutions were reached through multiplier events and more than 2000 people informed about GrandExpertS through presentations on relevant national and international events and conferences.The project contributes to innovation and internationalization in adult education, strengthens cooperation between seniors, raises the level of key competences and skills, stresses active participation in a European society, increases opportunities for further development of older adults, and helps to give everyone the chance to participate in education activities. Strongly included in this is an emphasis on EU 2020 goals (improving the quality and efficiency of education and training, enhancing creativity and innovation at all levels of education and training, making lifelong learning a reality).The set of project objectives serves the aim above and includes:• Improve and expand (digital) learning opportunities for older adults with Internet skills by enriching the learning offers with new contents and topics • Development of an innovative approach to enable seniors to create their own multimedia enriched learning offers. To guarantee high quality or learning materials, the seniors will be trained in an online course. • Facilitate access to learning opportunities through internet-based offerings • Promotion of interregional and European networking and cooperation among seniorsThe project consortium consists of 6 organizations working with and for older adults and experienced in training and adult education. It is led by the Innovation in Learning Institute at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) and includes Dublin City University (Ireland), Art Age (Netherlands), Tulip Foundation (Bulgaria), Foundation for Women’s Issues (Poland), and German National Association of Senior Citizens' Organisations (Germany).

Phenomena such as non-discrimination and equality are issues that the European Union and its member states emphasize with sensitivity. Numerous publications, projects, artistic activities and policy recommendations based on combating ethnicity and gender inequality have been produced on these issues. However, ageism, which is at least as important as ethnic discrimination and gender-based discrimination, has always been kept in the background in combating discrimination. But the aging trends of the European Union countries reveal how important it is to think about issues related to combating ageism. In this context, “WISELIFE: Raising Awareness about Ageism” was implemented primarily with the idea of raising awareness and combating this type of discrimination against the elderly. Because aging is a phenomenon that every individual will one day probably experience, unlike being of a certain ethnicity or gender. Therefore, activities focusing on ageism and aging experience and measures to be taken for age discrimination will be beneficial not only for a certain group of people but for the well-being of humanity.Apart from that, as COVID-19 cases continue to soar around the world, the physical and psycho-social health of our senior citizens warrants urgent attention, now more than ever before. Because these days, our elderly not only are at risk of losing their lives, but also suffer due to the prevalent stigma of ageism. In general, the elderly are marginalised even though traditionally humans are taught to respect and take care of the older generation, the innate fear of ‘ageing’, ‘losing vitality’ and death have made ‘ageism’ a prevalent ‘social evil’. Accordingly, the project consortium consists of countries that have various concerns about ageism. In Turkey, The Continuous Education Center within Izmir University of Economics is the coordinator institution of this project. From Italy, an institute for elderly hospitalization (ISRAA) is included in the project. Similarly, BAGSO which is an umbrella organisation of institutions that work for older people has been determined as another partner institution from Germany. Other partner institutions are University of the Aegean in Greece, University of Szeged in Hungary, and University of Lodz in Poland which are all represented with their continuous education centers. It is thought that the countries in this consortium are the ones that experience the ageism problem and the aging population reality at different levels, which will provide an advantage in addressing these issues at a transnational level.Five outputs are planned to be put forward within the project. The first output is planned to be a publication that contains descriptive and comparative analysis, country contexts and literature review on ageism. The second output is a training package for elderly which promotes active aging. Within this output, a mutually agreed training plan will be implemented and its results will be evaluated conducting a pre-test and post-test. The third output of the project is to shoot a documentary in which planning and implementation of the project will be reflected step by step. The fourth output of the project is to put forward a digital memory. The digital memory will be a platform that contains oral history studies, narratives on old photographs of objects and materials which connects the elderly to the past. The last output of the project is to provide a toolkit for elderly education for CECs in order to combat with exclusion of elderly from the social-sphere and to increase their happiness. This last output of the project will create a free toolkit for elderly education to be used by all CECs in European Countries.To obtain these outputs, the methodological approaches which will be adopted are quantitative approach which contain surveys for descriptive and comparative analyses and qualitative approach which contains depth-interviews, oral history studies and photographic story technic to create a digital memory platform. With all these outputs WISELIFE aims to raise awareness on ageism with the publication and the results of all the outputs, to decrease the exclusion of elderly from the social-sphere with the training package and digital memory outputs, to provide a road map for the institutions which are willing to work with older adults with the toolkit and the documentary and to promote active aging via enabling the elderly to benefit from educational opportunities. With the implementation of this project, it is expected that both international awareness will be raised against ageism and the activities which will support active aging will be shared, reproduced and became widespread. Also, in the long-term the project is expected to contribute to the development of national policies and dialogue between EU countries on adult education and combating against ageism.

The number of older people is rising in all European countries and the time people spend in retirement with good health conditions is also. At the same time, the interest and desire among older adults to participate in further education increases, too. In all European countries there are efforts to enable ageing well; still, many activities for seniors are designed with attendance and thus remain out of reach for several people, among others older adults with mobility restrictions, family commitments, or people from rural areas. Additionally, older people are mostly seen as recipients of activities but not actively involved when it comes to developing educational offers. Although the need for online learning opportunities is more and more recognized, education providers often do not know how to implement them in a way that meets best the needs of older learners. Experiences and systematic knowledge on the use of learning platforms by older adults are rare.With regard to the above-mentioned points, SenGuide has two far-reaching objectives. On the one hand, the project aims at giving older people the opportunity to both engage in further education and share their knowledge and skills online. Seniors with basic or medium ICT skills shall be supported in creating their own multimedia enriched material in an e-learning platform and share these with other older people. Topics are not limited to IT but can contain everything that older adults would like to learn, e.g. history, handcraft skills, gardening, and philosophy. This approach is innovative as usually teachers and trainers are people of working age and not older adults themselves. On the other hand, the improvement of knowledge and further gain in experience about the use of learning management systems by older learners and older authors is intended. Up to now, there is hardly any (systematic) knowledge about which framework conditions are necessary, how the implementation can look like, and what success factors are. As transnational project, the promotion of interregional and European networking and cooperation among seniors is also aimed at.The activities of the project will be centered on two main intellectual outputs, namely 1) Authoring training for the creation of digital content, 2) Guide for practitioners and facilitators in adult education. In the project 15 older adults will be trained to become authors of digital content in which they share their knowledge, skills, and experiences. Considerably more older adults will be directly involved in project activities through testing and evaluating the developed materials. In the survey implementation at least 85 older people are foreseen for participation. In addition to that, more than 130 practitioners and stakeholders from senior organizations and education institutions will be reached through multiplier events.The project contributes to research, innovation and internationalization in adult education, strengthens cooperation between seniors, raises the level of key competences and skills, stresses active participation in a European society, increases opportunities for further development of older adults, and helps to give everyone the chance to participate in education activities. Strongly included is an emphasis on EU 2020 goals (improving the quality and efficiency of education and training, enhancing creativity and innovation at all levels of education and training, making lifelong learning a reality).The project consortium consists of five organizations working with and for older adults and experienced in training and adult education. It is led by the Innovation in Learning Institute at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), and includes Silver Thread (Ireland), Jaume I University (Spain), Tulip Foundation (Bulgaria), and German National Association of Senior Citizens' Organizations (Germany).

The Project, Safeguarding older persons’ legal and human rights through an active citizenship inter-generational approach, will be a strategic partnership between four organisations (Sage Advocacy (Ireland), BAGSO (Germany), Tulip Foundation (Bulgaria) and Pro Senectute (Austria) which will seek to develop through learning and exchange of practice how an active citizenship and inter-generational response to protecting the human and legal rights of older persons in the participating countries can be advanced.The project will have two horizontal priorities: social inclusion and common values, civic engagement and participation. It will also seek to reflect the new field-specific priority listed in the ERASMUS + Guidelines published on 27th February 2020 -- offering activities of education and exchanges of experiences to seniors, with view to building and adding solidity to the European identity.The project will consist of a 3-day learning/training event in each partner organisation which will have a number of learning activities:Engage learners in looking at ways of protecting the rights of older people both as individuals and as a population groupRaise awareness about older persons’ legal and human rights among both older persons and civil society generally Highlight areas where older persons’ rights may be infringedIdentify good practices where these exist.Develop through dialogue and analysis of existing good practice in each partner country a Good Practice Handbook on How to Protect the Rights of Older Persons.The staff training and learning activities will be structured in such a way that the learners will enhance their knowledge and understanding of basic EU and UN documents relevant to the rights of older people, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Council of Europe Recommendations on Promoting the Human Rights of Older Persons and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. Learners will acquire new insights into existing and emerging discussions on questions concerning the rights of older peopleProject Outputs•Transnational Project Meetings in each partner country•3-day short-term staff training in each partner country•A Handbook of Good Practice which will:Promote the concept of intergenerational solidarity in protecting the human and legal rights and older personsIdentify best practice in respect of (1) identified through Transnational Project Meetings and staff trainingContain key messages about how to identify, address and pre-empt rights infringements and abuse in respect of older persons – by older people themselves, by civil society generally, by organisations working with vulnerable older people and their carers•Interactive WebsiteBased on the Handbook, develop an Interactive Dedicated Website to promote awareness about the rights of older persons, identify best practice and develop a transnational dialogue on the matter. A link will be included on each partner organisation’s website to this new interactive website.•A synthesis report based on the Learning/Training Activity in each partner country and on outcomes from the transnational meetings•Engagement with relevant rights focused organisations at both EU (e.g. Age Platform Europe) and at individual country levelsOutcomesAt the end of the project the Trainees (staff and support personnel) in each organisation will be able to: -- Recognise fundamental rights issues in working with and for older people-- Recognise ways of addressing these infringements -- Promote an active citizenship and inter-generational solidarity approach when planning and services and supports for vulnerable older groupsImpactAt local level each partner organisation will acquire new insights into best practice relating to identifying and safeguarding the human rights of older people. Other organisations working with older persons in each partner country will be offered the opportunity to engage with the topic. At national level a debate will be promoted among statutory agencies and NGOs working with older people.At international level an EU-wide policy discourse will be promoted through the interactive website developed on the basis of reflected project experience.Measuring ImpactThe project will be evaluated on an ongoing basis, ideally by an independent evaluator if funding is available for the latter and a report will be compiled. This evaluation will put in place a number of action points and indicators by which impact will be measured, including, in particular,Evaluation by participants in each of the 3-day short-term staff training events – a template questionnaire will be developed for this purposeReflection and analysis by the four partners under a series of bench-marking headings around perceptions before, during and after the project