Learning Revolutionaries
The Workers' Educational Association (WEA) is the United Kingdom's largest voluntary provider of adult education and the lead organisation for the 'Learning Revolutionaries' project.
The project aimed to create a network of thousands of individual citizens and develop the infrastructure and support that would enable them to establish learning circles across the country.
The project recruited, trained and supported adult learners to become volunteers known as 'Learning Revolutionaries'. The volunteers were trained to become community learning facilitators and, via community based self organised learning circles, engage adults in learning.
In addition to targeting specific communities at regional and local levels, the project also collated information and research material to develop a national picture of learning needs. It raised the profile of the 'Learning Champions 'approach to the promotion of learning and embedded it in a wide range of activities.
The Learning Revolutionaries project was able to signpost learners to other avenues of learning. This was one of the significant outcomes of the project, particularly for those who were looking to take up community and adult learning opportunities.
The Learning Circles developed during the project brought together several hundred partners through networking and joint working arrangements. In this way, the project reached out to a whole host of people and groups who have traditionally not engaged in community learning or informal education.
Established networks do not always mean that working partnerships run smoothly and for this reason some delays took place in building up the network of volunteers and learners in order to start the programme.
When setting up this type of project, it is important to have a project plan for each region, so that volunteer coordinators are able to identify sub-regional cultural issues and identify regional strengths and weaknesses.
Workers' Educational Association, 39 Mapperley Road ,Nottingham NG3 5AQ.
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Resources
Learning Revolutionaries website
A list of resources related to the project is available on The Learning Revolutionaries project website
The resources include a guide about setting up Learning Circles, a Mentor Training Pack, help on setting up a blog, and a range of publicity used to promote the project.
