ICAE STRATEGIC PLAN 2003 - 2006
“Up to now, humanity has been always educated for war,
never for peace. They constantly stun us with the affirmation that if we want
peace tomorrow, there is no other option than make war today. It is the time to
apply ourselves to the most wonderful and beautiful task of all: the incessant
construction of peace. However, this peace must be the peace of dignity and
human respect, not the peace of submission and humiliation that many times
comes disguised under the mask of a fake protective friendship. Without peace,
without an authentic peace, there will be no human rights. And without human
rights, all of them, one by one, democracy will never be other than sarcasm, an
offence to reason, a joke" (José Saramago)
General context
This
Strategic Plan of the ICAE is drafted within a context of absolute incertitude
regarding a diversity of agreements, rules and procedures that more or less
have until now regulated the exercise of the rights at international level.
This is a
moment that makes all the persons that have worked in favour of the validity of
human rights ask themselves: which is the result of this tireless and militant
work?
There are
many voices that are calling us to renew hope, such as Saramago's, Gunther Frank's
and so many other persons that have been paving the way while walking. They are
calling on us to contribute to build and rebuild the human dignity of each
person on this planet, always from the place of the exercise of each one of the
human rights.
From the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 through the Declaration of the
International Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg in 1997, to the World
Forum on Education for All in Dakar in 2000, an international consensus has
been reached on the right to education and the right to learn throughout life
for women and men as well as on the central role of adult education in support
of creative and democratic citizenship.
As the
Hamburg Declaration has stated: “The informed and effective participation of
men and women in every sphere of life is needed if humanity is to survive and
meet the challenges of the future"
As
expressed in the Council’s Declaration of Ocho Rios, “we dream of a new
international community of justice, democracy and respect for difference. Yet
everywhere we see an economic globalisation that widens the gap between the
haves and the have-nots creating needs among the ever-growing number of
excluded women and men and also degrading the environment. It shifts the focus
of learning from the collective to the individual. This context exacerbates
diverse forms of discrimination based on gender, race, disability, class,
religion, sexual orientation or personal preferences, age, linguistic and
ethnic differences; and discrimination against aboriginal peoples, refugees,
migrants and displaced persons.
We have
taken notice of the large numbers of people from all corners of the world who
in
We are
caught in a dilemma between the possibilities of a genuinely democratic and
sustainable learning society, and the passivity, poverty, vulnerability and
chaos that economic globalisation is creating everywhere. We commit ourselves
to work for an equitable world where all forms of discrimination are eliminated
and peace is possible"
From Ocho
Rios to the present days the world context has worsened; today, a war is in
motion, generating an incertitude regarding its results on all those global
agreements and regulations painfully achieved by the international community,
and which are currently being questioned.
When facing
the reelaboration of its Strategic Plan, the ICAE maintains and reaffirms its
mission:
“The ICAE promotes lifelong learning as a
necessary component for people to contribute creatively to their communities
and to live in independent and democratic societies. Adult and lifelong
learning are deeply linked to social, economic and political justice; equality
of gender relations; the universal right to learn; living in harmony with the
environment; respect for human rights; recognition of cultural diversity;
peace; and the active involvement of women and men in decisions affecting their
lives”.
The
above-mentioned implies to work for a global advocacy agenda that contributes
to place Adult Education and Lifelong Learning as a Human Right and as a tool
for people to struggle for their dignity.
This means
to grow inside and outside, densifiying the ICAE, repositioning it as a global
Adult Education network with a clear role to play.
Furthermore,
it poses the need to move forward in the analysis of a new paradigm of an
education for the XXI century in order to understand and cope with all the
changing and contradictory realities, and to build another possible world,
while enabling the organizations engaged in adult education to reelaborate
their agenda according to the current priorities and elaborate proposals.
Quoting
Morin, the education of the future must be centred on the human condition. We
are in the planetary era; a common adventure seizes humans wherever they are.
These must recognize each other in their common humanity and, at the same time,
recognize the cultural diversity inherent to all things human.
This debate
emerges at a juncture in which we find societies that have not solved the issue
of access to education, and in which the right to education and learning is not
accomplished nor guaranteed; societies without even the minimum of conditions
for life
Quoting
Agneta Lind, poverty is causing illiteracy, so literacy must be promoted
through multi-sectorial interventions in a context of development, education
reform, poverty alleviation, creating literate environments. Local and
traditional knowledge needs to be valued and taken advantage of in a learning society.
Adult basic learning and education in itself will not solve the problems
of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, violations of human tights, HIV/AIDS,
exclusion, etc. Adult basic education and learning and popular education are a
means to cope with basic needs of adults, but have the potential of enabling
creative and democratic citizenship, giving a voice to people living in
poverty, as well as tools for improving their lives.
It also
implies the need of understanding reality and elaborating proposals that begin
with the concept of intersectionality, in which multiple discriminations
converge.
It implies to move forward to the concept of learning spaces at all
levels, and beyond the formal spaces.
We must
learn to unlearn…to detach ourselves from the logics of rivalry and power
learned for so long. We need to transform our differences into an asset instead
of a liability. Our culture has been forged in a way that tends to the
imposition of the “unique thought”. Learning another culture, which force is
exactly this diversity, is difficult, but we are headed in this direction.
Giving life
to diversity and pluralism in the construction of alternatives for the change
is a challenge for civil society’s international movement.
The way to achieve those objectives is for ICAE as important as the
objectives themselves because ICAE needs to be a learning space in order to
become a world actor for transformation on education.
ACTION GUIDELINES
The ICAE will work following 5 action guidelines that
will contribute to the achievement of the objectives and expected results of
its Strategic Plan.
1. Action Guideline: Global Incidence
Develop
mechanisms and tools to monitor and influence in the decision-making spaces and
the elaboration of public policies at national, regional and global levels, in
an articulated manner, within the framework of the agreements reached in the
cycle of UN conferences in the areas of right to education and lifelong
learning, social, economic and gender justice, and sustainable development.
2. Action Guideline: Building alliances and global and
regional coordinations
Foster the
coordination mechanisms with other regional and global networks, on the basis
of common interests and objectives, in order to strengthen the politic and
propositive presence of civil society in the various spheres and the presence
of ICAE in relation to the right to lifelong education and learning in every
learning space.
3. Action
Guideline: Research and systematization
Promote researches to advance in the elaboration of new proposals
for adult education and learning, and in specific issues of interest on the
part of the member organizations of the ICAE, such as workspaces and local
communities as a learning environment, as well as promote the systematization
of existing experiences.
4. Action Guideline: Develop Learning Spaces
Develop
learning spaces that link theoretical and practical contributions for the
member organizations of the ICAE at regional and global levels, in coordination
with other networks, in order to contribute to the development of new proposals
around networking within the current world context, as well as around issues
and methodologies that contribute to improve the intervention practices
prioritised in the Strategic Plan.
5. Action
Guideline: Communications and Information
Strengthen the communications, information and exchange mechanisms,
such as "Convergence", the elaboration of printed bulletins as ICAE
News and the electronic bulletin "Voices Rising" of the Gender and
Education Office of the ICAE, and the website of the Council, while
intensifying and prioritising at the same time the interrelation with ICAE
members.
STRATEGIES
The strategies comprise the possible ways to achieve the objectives and the
expected results featured in detail in the Strategic Plan. For this strategic
plan, the ICAE elaborated global programs that feature the specific strategies
to be developed operationally through concrete projects.
Global
Program I:
The Right
to Education and Lifelong learning in the new global social agenda.
General Objective
Draw the attention and promote action at national and global level of
decision-makers and public opinion on the right to learn of women and men at
national and global levels through a strong policy of advocacy, while
highlighting the key role of alternative adult education and life long learning
in the new global social agenda.
Strategy No 1: Citizen Watch on the
Right to Education
§
To
follow up the implementation commitments made in CONFINTEA on the right to
learn of men and women and of EFA goals by undertaking by the “World Shadow
Report” initiative
§
To
disseminate the results at national and global level in order to promote the
preparatory process towards CONFINTEA+6
§
To consolidate
a specialized international working group for the development of the Citizen
Watch on the Right to Education
§
To form
an international working group on Education for Sustainable Development
§
To
develop skills that enable ICAE network to follow the global scenarios on
special issues which may have impacts on the right to learn of adults.
Strategy No 2: The Right to Education without
Discrimination: a Gender Perspective
§
To
contribute to a gender mainstreaming of ICAE´s structure, programs and ongoing
projects
§
To
promote the formation of new leaders for GEO, particularly in
§
To
strengthen GEO positioning at global level and gender analysis in all spaces
§
To
highlight education with gender justice as a strategic tool for the empowerment
of women.
§
To
implement a comprehensive and systematic approach of interlinkages and
intersectionality on all forms of discrimination such as gender, race, poverty,
migrants, ethnicity
Strategy No 3:
Literacy and Basic Education Skills
§
To
increase ICAE researching and documenting capacities on innovative adult literacy work
§
To
create strong links between EFA follow
up and create strong links with CONFINTEA's adult education and lifelong
learning processes
Strategy No 4:
Specific actions and Monitoring tools for advocacy
§
To
develop capacity building within ICAE’s membership towards a more
efficient advocacy work at all levels
§
To
develop, create and disseminate different advocacy tools, at national and
global levels.
§
To give visibility, sensitize and raise public awareness on the violation
to the Right to Education
§
To
promote the realization of campaigns for the right to learn throughout life,
such as the Adult Learning Week and the ICAE Campaign launched in
Global Program II:
Functioning as
a learning system network: learning and unlearning
General objective:
To increase the capacity of the ICAE as a learning system network through the
generation of new networking modalities and methodologies, and learn
collectively within the framework of the promotion of facilitating learning
contexts.
Strategy No 1: Developing innovative projects
§
To
promote the formation of a group that enables the densification of the network
through the identification of new action guidelines in order to diversify and
give a new meaning and content to our practices.
§
To
increase the capacity for discovering those areas in which it is important to
be involved, in addition to the traditional ones (black holes).
§
To
organize an International Summer Institute.
§
To
uncover the world of informal learning for a better understanding of the way in
which the intersectionality of multiple discriminations manifest itself.
Strategy No 2:
Generating synergies with other actors
§
To
invite diverse actors (new and old social movements, trade unions, multilateral
agencies, University research groups, local governments, national and global
networks) in order to learn from others, put ideas in common, and coordinate
efforts to deepen our knowledge about educational related matters in a world
marked by “a sense of uncertainties”
§
To look
for partnerships with other groups and organizations already working on the
construction of new learning alternatives
Global Program III:
Capacity building and partnership consolidation
General
objectives:
To achieve a greater visibility and recognition as a
global network that aims at assisting and cooperating with other networks and
actors that work towards a new world, while thinking and acting at national,
regional and global levels.
To develop ICAE as a learning space
To develop the capacity building of ICAE through
leadership strengthening and training in ICAE working regions, while invigorating
ICAE national members and promoting their incorporation into the ongoing
programs and projects.
Strategy No 1:
Learning with networks and sharing experiences
§
To
promote the growth of ICAE
leadership capacity politically
and strategically in order to guarantee and strengthen ICAE advocacy roll
§
To open
up reflection spaces, and carry out in -depth studies to enlarge our
understanding of the current role of the networks in every day more -
globalized world through the sharing of learning experiences of other networks.
§
To
support regional consolidation processes through specific actions according to
their needs
Strategy No 2: Adult learning and
globalization
§
To
strengthen the visibility and position of ICAE in Global Forums so as to stress
the relevance of including alternative adult education in the construction of a
new global social agenda
§
To
promote the engagement of ICAE and it organizations members in WSF processes
showing the flag “Another Possible Education for Another Possible World”
Strategy Nº 3:
Transformative capacities of workspaces as a learning environment
§
To
promote the analysis of transformative capacities of workspaces and processes
as learning sites for the full development of people, their organizations, and
communities
§
To study
how transformation in workspaces generate a differential impact on workers’
conditions and their families on the basis of gender and age
§
To
uncover the dimension of informal learning opportunities taking place at work
in a determined “learning environment” and making it more transparent
Strategy No 4:
Learning pacific coexistence, democracy and Human Rights
§
To help
redefine education for sustainable peace and social justice in military
conflicts and non-declared conflict context
§
To
develop a proposal on inclusive education which enables the engagement of
educators from different regions of the ICAE
Strategy No 5:
Training of Adult Educators
§
To seek
to make training a fundamental issue on the agenda of ICAE regional adult
education organizations, to revisit the perspective and to advocate this at
global level
§
Promote international cooperation among
ICAE’s members, and organizations involved in training of adult educators
§
Support
initiatives that promote training of the educators of adult people and advocate
for an on -going training for adult educators
§
To
develop advocacy actions for the integration of the theme “Training of
Educators” in the CONFINTEA V Mid Term Review Process, and immediate Follow up
Strategy Nº 6:
Global communications and information
§
To
support the systematization and documentation of adult learning theory and
practice through publications
§
To
promote the generation of an active and participatory membership through
virtual mechanisms
§
To
continue the development and consolidation of ICAE’s Website and virtual
communications and strengthen cooperation linkages with other documentation and
information networks