The 3rd European CSA meeting was also an important milestone for the “Be part of CSA!” educational programme. This was the first time when project partners could share their experiences with CSA actors from all over Europe.
Education is a really important tool for strengthening the CSA movement – turned out from the introduction of about 25 CSA actors who participated on the “Be part of CSA!” session in Ostrava. There are several local educational initiatives which were created based on specific needs, but getting to know a European educational programme and its experiences was an inspiration to everybody.
In order to have a participatory session, experience sharing was the key activity in Ostrava. After a short presentation of the “Be part of CSA!” training project, the Hungarian and Romanian training participants got the chance to share their experiences and personal stories in two big groups. Farmers and consumers explained how motivating was to participate in a 4 days long training programme, met others who has the same interests and doubts and learn from experienced CSA farmers and coordinators. As they explained the training programme changed their lives completely as for them CSA is the only way of living from now on.
And probably this is the main strength of the “Be part of CSA!” training programme. It does not only serve knowledge sharing, but also have an important role in empowerment. Thanks to the training events, participants got to know each other and built cooperation which strengthened the national CSA networks too. These relationships did not break even after the end of the training programme.
It seems that this approach was interesting for other CSA organisations too. So we agreed that as the educational materials will be finalised in English (training guide, booklet, short film, crop planner etc.), they will be shared for new lan
guage adaptations. Also an e-mail group was suggested for those who are interested in educational activities on CSA.
The project team made sure that all of the feedbacks are collected: the evaluation of the session was an important point of their management meeting which was held just after the European meeting. On the event the overall evaluation of the project was planned and the final dissemination activities were listed in order to ensure the smooth closing of the project.
