On November 28th2023, an event called “À conversa sobre: participação política na Educação de Adultos” – «Talking about: political participation in Adult Education» – was organized at the EPATV – Escola Profissional Amar Terra Verde. This event was part of the Erasmus+ project BEEP – Basic Education and Empowerment for Political Participation. The event was advertised in advance, mainly through partner organizations that work with a wide audience.
On the day of the event, we had 31 participants attending in person (and around 20 students from our school – who didn’t sign the presence list as belonging to our organization) and 20 participating online.
After the participants were welcomed by the coordinator of our Qualifica Centre, Rosa Vieira, Francisca Borges presented the BEEP project, highlighting its objectives and the products already produced by the consortium, namely the PR1 – research report summary. The website was presented: https://projectbeep.eu/
Next, after presenting the handbook and anticipating the PRs already being prepared – the guidelines and policy recommendations, a world café activity was proposed. The group was invited to divide into small groups of up to six participants and each group was sent to a table. The World Café methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large group dialogue. Before starting the activity, everyone was asked to stop by the coffee break table to help themselves with something to drink while chatting in small groups. This was done to establish a relaxed atmosphere. In each group, the question was asked: what could stop us from participating? The participants had the chance to express themselves about the barriers they might encounter in the participatory process. This was done without focusing specifically on the political aspect. As for the online participants, they were directed to 3 breakout rooms, where they also had the chance to discuss the issue. After 20 minutes of activity, everyone was asked to return to the main session. Each group, through a spokesperson, presented the results (including the online participants). It emerged that the barriers to participation are mainly linked to socio-economic, geographical and age issues. It was mentioned by several groups that people living in more isolated places, with a very low level of education and older age are those who are very disconnected from participatory processes. There is also the issue of trust in organizations, which appears to be a barrier to willingness to participate.
The participants were then invited to carry out the Fishbowl activity and divided into 3 groups. The online participants were also divided into two groups, with 10 participants in each breakout room. Fishbowl is a strategy for facilitating group discussions. In a Fishbowl discussion, the participants inside the fishbowl actively discuss a topic. The participants outside the fishbowl listened attentively to the conversation. The participants take turns in these roles to practice being contributors and listeners in a group discussion. The topic for discussion was how to promote participation. After 15 minutes of discussion, the participants returned to the main session to share the results. Some of the answers to the question about how to promote more active participation were related to the relevance of the topic for participation. If citizens feel close to the topic, they will certainly participate more actively. Associated with this is the issue of knowing and understanding the topic. In addition, some participants said they usually didn’t feel listened to when they participated. And this is one reason why they stopped participating.
The representatives of EPATV in the BEEP project – Francisca Borges and Rosa Vieira – closed the session by thanking the participants for their valuable contributions to the drafting of the guidelines and policy recommendations, inviting everyone present (in person and online) to follow the project via its website.
