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Generations of Europe CV

Contact: Rita JASMONTIENE

Mob: +37068215456

E-mail: ritajasmontiene@gmail.com

“Generations of Europe” (GE) works for and with people from all generations and all age groups. It is an association from Lithuania which represents education, training and seeks to provide youth and adult learners with guidance and information services, being especially active in such areas as non-formal education, entrepreneurship and healthy life. GE was established in 2000 even before Lithuania joined European Union, being a strong supporter for further Lithuanian integration into the Union and its values as essential part of Lithuania and its people. GE was strongly collaborating with European committee under government in such areas as Lithuanian integration to the EU, spreading its values and benefits. Being one of the most noticeable and active partners of this committee from year 2000 to 2004 GE participated in many events promoting European values, appeared in number of television and radio events, changing the point of view of adults and young people. The educational system and its understanding during these times was very strongly affected by the heritage of old , formal and strict ways of learning, which nowadays can hardly be successful when reaching youth, and it was noticed by GE that there has to be changes, with more introduction of western values and ways in this area. The organization did not stop its activities after Lithuania joined the European Union. Actually, it started to be even more active in the fields that need further change and improvement.

In 2004 we started collaborating with European Association of Institutions of Non-formal Education of Children and Youth, sharing same values and desire to spread the idea of non-formal education methods in its institutions. GE made and participated in many youth education events in such institutions as universities, schools, summer schools, academies and etc. Non-formal education should be one of the building blocks of success of the youth. It allows youngsters to be more interested in educating themselves and does not put frames, which sometimes does not allow them to break trough and fully express themselves and their talents. Furthermore, GE also participated in international events, and has a quite impressive number of them and level of experience gained. Such projects as “Faith in Europe”, which mission was to increase enthusiasm of youth and keep valuing being Europeans, “Peer2peer4you” emphasizing the importance of non-formal education, “Young woman today”, seeking to keep the growth of woman importance in the society of EU, especially education, and many more. The number of projects is so high that it is hardly possible to write and describe all of them. With more than a decade of experience of working and cooperating with other European organizations GE established itself as an active actor in projects concerning many spheres.

Organizations involvement in seminars, international exchanges and trainings were beneficial and useful. We established a lot of strong ties with partners of other EU countries and even beyond it. Non-formal education, for youth and adult learners, as it can already be seen from the first part of this paper, is one of the essential values that GE wants to spread and build in Lithuania and whole Europe. Even before the current decade, the situation of non-formal education in the institutions was still really insignificant. None of the institutions were seeking to introduce non-formal educations in their techniques, being afraid of change or skeptical about its benefits, although they already were seeable in other European countries, mostly Western Europe. GE understood that non-formal education would really help students, and was actively promoting it. From year 2010, more and more non-formal techniques were introduced in educational institutions in Lithuania, what we can call a breaking point, and be proud to call ourselves to be one of the great motivators for it to happen. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement, since it is still hard for some of the non-formal techniques to bond with educational system, and jus as earlier, GE will not stop to promote the values it sees essential. Although it has been 14 years since its creation, our members are not losing passion to work for better youth and better Europe, and also included many of young new members. These new members are very active and are helping to keep GE full with new ideas. Number of them is studying in such areas as politics and international relations, which means that they see the activities of the GE not only as hobby, but as their future, which improves motivation for themselves and for whole organization. These members already started their own initiatives with non-formal education, starting their own organizations and projects. GE works with children, young people, adults and the elderly in various “Erasmus” and “Comenius” which leads to successful mobilization of local community. Through these years of involvement the association expanded its approaches and fields of activities to a more comprehensive and wider variety of ways to successfully implement its ideas.

The organization is constantly increasing its fields of its activities efficiency on present and future fields of involvement and cooperation.  When talking about the future actions and initiatives, especially from the part of international projects, GE seeks to increase their knowledge in all of the areas, especially non-formal education, and used what it gained to inspire non-formal education initiatives back in Lithuania, since as stated earlier, we want to change the strict mentality of education which was built during Soviet Union times. Of course, our organization itself has huge experience, especially from many youth exchanges in EU, activities in Universities and other educational institutions and cooperation with local communities in general, and we want to share it with other partners since it spreads the values we emphasize and help others.