At the end of the summer of 2019, the DIAL project comes to an end presenting not only the expected but also fruitful results with added value. The team has developed an active and demanded teaching platform, has organized pilot tests and actual trainings with the main target groups of the project. Furthermore, the project’s leading partner follows the example and makes first steps towards Senior University in Latvia. 

 

The DIAL project on Senior Digital Skills took place from October 2017 to September 2019. This Erasmus + Strategic Partnership project has reached its set goals – the team conducted a senior citizen survey in four countries (Portugal, Turkey, Latvia and Cyprus) developing a list of digital skills which the respondents of the survey pointed out as topics of interest to learn in depth. Based on the results, 4 teaching modules were created and are now available online http://moodle.dialproject.eu/. Furthermore, the team organized trainings in all four partner countries, presenting the materials, registering participants on the Moodle platform and disseminating the results. On July 27, 2019, the project organized a Conference, disseminating the results, introducing the attendees with the teaching material and the digital situation nowadays as such. If you could not attend the Conference, follow the link and watch the recording on YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEFP4W9mUtk&feature=youtu.be

In total, there were 7 trainings held in 4 European countries, DIAL team taught 142 seniors and youngsters within the training programmes. The petition about the project was signed by more than 1000 citizens from Portugal, Latvia, Cyprus and Portugal. 3136 Facebook users were informed about the final Conference of the project. Throughout these two years, the society was informed via project official Facebook page (dialErasmusPlus) and partner pages about the project’s progress and results 94 times. DIAL was communicated via various media channels throughout all four partner countries, for instance among them there were articles in Latvia’s newspaper “Diena”, online media “Jelgavas Vēstnesis”, in Portugal there was a radio interview on Radio Sim and an article in local news portal of Almeirim. Turkey’s partner had a significant interview on NTV radio etc.

 

After the project, the partners came to a conclusion that the partnership was very well planned, as the partners were fulfilling each other and each of them had expertise in different field which was useful during the different phases of the project implementation.

 

The DIAL project helped raise awareness not only of the need and interest in seniors’ digital skill development, but also of seniors' opportunities to be active overall. Drawing on the good practice from the DIAL project partner RUTIS (Portugal) on running Senior University for many years, DIAL's Leading Partner, Project Net, decided to live by their example and announced that they will introduce the Senior University or in other words the Third Generation University also in Latvia. During the conference, it was solemnly announced that in the autumn of 2019, a branch of the Latvian Senior University would open its doors, meaning that it would be the 347th branch of its kind in the world.

 “DIAL” is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership project in the Adult Sector targeting mainly elderly people. The main aim of the project is to provide intergenerational and Life Long Learning opportunities to grandparents to acquire essential digital competences that will enable active ageing and access to the e-word.

The Erasmus+ project “DIAL” is co-funded by the European Union.  Find out more about Erasmus+ program on https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/node_en

 This publication reflects the views of the author. The European Commission and managing authority of the programme is not liable for how this information may be used.