Skip to main content

The SocialErasmus coordinators’ meeting fall 2014

The SocialErasmus coordinators’ meeting fall 2014

Sun, 11/02/2014 - 12:40

       

The meeting was held from 25th to the 28th of September in Besancon, France.

Who were present?

  • Local and national SocialErasmus coordinators from ESN countries in Europe were present,
  • Representatives from the board of ESN international and the international SocialErasmus committee. 
  • National project coordinator Marianne Kristine Sundby represented ESN Norway ! 

The objective of the meeting: 

A general theme for the SECM was “how to improve our social impact (quality)”. The team strategy focuses on how we can promote all the good examples we have in the network and explaining the importance of the quality of the activities. Creating and promoting high quality SocialErasmus activities are very important to increase awareness around the project itself, and are also important for the general visibility of ESN. To increase the quality of SE-activities it is also very important to foster knowledge transfer between both the local sections and the international sections. This lets sections share their best practices with others and we can all learn from each other and help each other improve.

At the plenary these where the main discussions:

  • What is a good activity and what is not?  The main points that were derived from this activity are that it is sometimes hard to distinguish a SocialErasmus activity from a regular ESN activity.
  •  Representatives from the international level presented the team strategy for 2014-2015. The strategy focuses on four main areas: Empower NSECs, Promote SocialErasmus as a label, Promote cooperation, and improve our social impact.
  • Market of ideas session; where each national or local coordinator had brought a poster of a well performed SE-activity from their country/section.
  •  Erasmus in Schools; it can be beneficial to cooperate with the national agency. They can help local sections to get in contact with schools, and to promote ESN on a general basis. In Norway a potential partner can be SIU (Senter for internasjonalisering av utdanning)
  • Representatives of ESN Spain presented about their national events and how SocialErasmus can be beneficial to include on a Nationa event.
  • Why is important to have statistics and data?
-          Keeping track of your growth and improvement,
-          Planning and strategically decisions,  
-          Motivation through competition with other sections and countries,
-          Inspirations, encouragement for others,
-          Easy promotion: info graphics, cover pictures, posters,
-           Self-promotion through new registration system,
-          Accumulated social impact is bigger social impact,
-          Communication with universities: recognition is easier ( e.g. in thank you letters to universities to recognize their coordinators... )
-           Lobbying on national and international level;  External conferences, ESN conference:
-          All information in one place.


  • Cooperation within and between countries: Regional platform - mini NEP 

This session were meant to give the local and national coordinators from the same country the opportunity to discuss among themselves what they learnt from the weekend and how they can use their knowledge in their country. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Estonia were lacking the presence of Local coordinators on the meeting. We therefore decided to have a “mini-NEP” where we discussed the opportunities for SocialErasmus in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, as well as cooperation between the countries. We all felt that the Scandinavian countries have a lot of the same problems to address. Because the welfare systems are so well developed it is sometimes hard for us to see where SocialErasmus can be beneficial. As we may not have the same social and developmental issues as other countries in Europe we have to think new and to adjust the SocialErasmus project so that it fits the current situation in each country. It is important to identify the “unique” issues in our countries and to address the current problems we are facing with SocialErasmus activities that are adjusted to the local