LARA CONGRESS

On October 15th, 2010, the final congress of the LARA project took place in Hamburg and drew an audience of practitioners, planners, policy makers and other stakeholders.

The congress gave the LARA team an opportunity to showcase its achievements by launching the toolkit, manual and guide and by describing how the partnership had reached this stage. Keynote addresses provided a context for our work.

• Pauline Swanton, UK, introduced the project and presented a summary of important findings and results.
• Jim Soulsby, UK, worked with participants on the future of LARA’s ideas using some of the techniques promoted in the training package.
• Alan Smith, Coordinator of the Grundtvig programme at the European Commission, presented Grundtvig activities from the last 20 years and discussed the developments and challenges of projects funded by the EU.
• Dr. Dusana Findeisen, Slovenia, representing the AGE platform which promotes the voice of older people at the European Commission and elsewhere, spoke of the need for later life learning and discussed reasons why older people need to learn.

Small group discussions focused on LARA’s programme of work; how LARA materials may be used in future; what follow-up work may be appropriate. A plenary session provided opportunity for analysis, comment and evaluation.

Please click here to download the programme; presentations; pictures; results of group discussions; feedback on the toolkit.

For further information please contact Heike Koelln-Prisner at Hamburger Volkshochschule, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it