LEALA set out to develop new approaches, tools and resources for tailored futures education in a variety of circumstances and environments. The project is directed to a diverse global audience of learners in developing regions. In the first project cycle of 2012-2013 it enabled 90 young adults to participate in workshops, seminars or short courses. In 2014-2015 an additional 60 participants took part in local projects.
Each of the four local projects in 2014-2015 had a unique approach for accompanying participants in conceiving futures for themselves and their local and global environments. Local coordinators developed and defined the local programmes according to local needs and possibilities. Each project linked into other existing projects and external partners. Thematic focus, educational methods, duration, pedagogic materials and participants’ profiles were different in each case. All four learning labs, however, facilitated futures perspectives (and presumably anticipation) amongst the groups of participants facing highly uncertain and undesirable futures and all the activities sought to have emancipatory impacts. How far this emancipatory goal was achieved, has depended not just on the tools and methods employed in the four learning labs but also was a function of the participants’ previously existing capacity to affect the futures, related to the position within broader local and global structures from which they started.
The follow-up on the 2012-2013 project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo intensified the intercultural exchange with artistic methods and presentations. The project in the Philippines used specific futures methods and techniques to challenge women decision makers’ ideas on city futures. The women imprisoned in Mexico found new ways to think about their personal futures and reintegration into society through ‘forward theatre’ exercises, while a mixed group of participants in Haiti used a well-delineated design method to come up with concrete proposals for higher education in their country.
By following the links below you will find the stories and updates on the live LEALA courses, workshops and activites tht we have undertaken over the last four years. This is where you can get some of the atmosphere of the project and its pilots as well as event mentions.
In 2012-2013 these stories come from Cairo, Egypt; Penang, Malaysia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Follow this link for more information.
In 2014-2015 these stories come from Haiti, Mexico and Philippines. Follow this link for more information.