The European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) describes itself as the voice of non-formal Adult Education in Europe. Working in an association for media and Research in Adult Education, I was very interested in learning more about Adult Education on a European level. I also wanted to get to know colleagues from other countries, network with them and maybe establish some future collaborations, as well as improve my language skills. This is why, together with my colleague Lucia, I applied for this year's Younger Staff Training that took place in Brussels in September. Funding by Erasmus+ enabled me to actually take part.

We left for Brussels early in the morning and started touring the city before visiting the EAEA Office and getting to know the other participants. Their backgrounds ranged from trainers to University staff to media professionals and it was very interesting to learn about their work life and what Adult Education means in their countries.

Besides having an introductory session about Adult Education in the different countries, we had a quite diverse programme: a workshop on advocacy methods, a session on European Adult Education policies, another workshop on writing project applications. We could also get active and design our own advocacy campaign. 

One of the highlights of the week was the study visit to the Adult Education center “Le Monde des Possibles” in Liège. The institution works with refugees and undocumented people and has a lot of interesting projects such as a coding school, where the clients get trained in coding and later start to work on their own projects, e.g. a website for other social institutions. 

Aside from working very hard in the training (we were really tired after the sessions), we also got to experience Brussels, take part in a city tour and visit the European Parliament. The lovely staff from EAEA as well as the international colleagues from different countries made this training a great experience – not only from a professional, but also a personal point of view – that we wouldn’t want to miss. 

We created a Video Diary that shows our memories, which can be found at the following address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLmoJwmkDzQ&feature=youtu.be