Working visit to Innovative network Subotica, Serbia

Under the Other Perspectives of Knowledge project, we implement staff learning mobility to improve the practices of non-formal education for minorities in Slovenia

In the second half of June, we visited the partner organization Innovative Network, which has its headquarters in multiethnic Subotica, the second-largest city in the far north of Vojvodina. Subotica is known for its beautiful Art Nouveau architecture, wide squares and exceptional cultural and historical richness. In combination with the multicultural spirit and European charm, this city is literally different. In an instant, it can enchant even the most experienced traveller. It is known for its leisure, good food and quality wines. The daily hustle and bustle of the city, festivals, many events and a vibrant cultural life further enhance the already rich cultural heritage.

The Town Hall, the Synagogue, the Rajhl Palace and dozens of similar buildings place Subotica among the most typical Art Nouveau cities in Europe. All these passionate forms full of rounded lines, wavy strokes and unusual colours mark the period of Art Nouveau style. Near Subotica, there is also a resort by Lake Palić and many suburban settlements that can boast of their farms, hunting grounds, stud farms, orchards and vast fields of the Pannonian Plain. Subotica is also the cultural centre of the Croatian and Hungarian ethnic minorities in Vojvodina, and both languages ​​are the official languages ​​of the city in addition to Serbian.

We decided to visit the Innovative Network from Subotica because of examples of good practices.  Cooperation with its local partners’ network creates non-formal education programs and their experience in producing quality audiovisual content and communication tools, especially when working with minorities who live in the rural surroundings of Subotica. We established initial contact with the Innovative Network from Serbia through our strategic partner, the Croatian Cultural and Educational Association Matija Gubec Tavankut. We have been cooperating for many years in implementing adult education programs for minorities, and we also implement several joint projects of Erasmus+ and Europe for citizens programmes.

Through staff mobility projects, Institute Burja develops its internationalization strategy, strengthens the international network of partner organizations and introduces new knowledge into its work processes, exchanges good practices, relevant information, joint initiatives, mutual learning, new projects, and contributes to a more significant role of minority organizations in the field of non-formal adult education and more substantial benefit to its end users.

With each working visit, we make a long-term impact on key areas that are important to us. We strengthen the motivation of adult minority members for non-formal education, improve their learning opportunities and potentials, promote awareness-raising, information and social inclusion activities. We improve the institutional capacity of our organization and at the same time develop international and regional partnerships.

We choose various institutions abroad to strengthen cross-sectoral integration, from municipalities to people’s universities or non-governmental organizations. There, we need to operate in a nationally mixed environment, coordinate various forms of non-formal education and have positive practices in the social inclusion of ethnic minorities.

At the end of March, we visited the municipality of Ludbreg in Croatia as part of the same project, and this time we went to the far north of Serbia.

The three working days were short, although our visit was during the summer solstice when the days are the longest. We started the rich work programme with our arrival on Sunday, as the hosts made an extensive programme of individual and group work and networking with various stakeholders. We also had a dynamic guided tour of the city and its surroundings while moving between different locations in Subotica and its suburbia. The largest regional television TV Vojvodina also covered an extensive contribution to the purpose of our project and this visit. So, in addition to our extensive work, we still had some media obligations.

We touched on quite a few fields of activity during this visit and exchanged concrete experiences on both the development strategy and the operational work program. The Innovative Network is a very strongly cross-sectoral networked organization at the local level. In their work, they cooperate extensively with both public and non-governmental organizations. They effectively draw funds for their work from various local, provincial and national programmes and have also participated in the implementation of Interreg programs. Internationally, they cooperate mainly with organizations operating in the border area of ​​Croatia and Hungary.

This visit was also marked by the current issue of online, classic or  blended education programs, especially in the spirit of so called new realities (the seasonal pandemic restrictions and their release). We also discussed the development of various online courses and mixed, blended education programs. In the long run, our hosts, even though they use a lot of ICT in their work and information programmes, bet their value on blended education programmes. They see them with the most significant added importance given the local and international social unpredictability caused by the epidemic. New technology and its use in the education system have many advantages, and the strengthening of digital competences is necessary for development and progress. Above all, its added value in the form of wider availability of quality educational content is indisputable. At the same time, we should not lose the socialization and other soft skills that adult learners acquire within their groups. Our position on that issue is also quite similar.

Even before the epidemic began, we invested a lot of effort and energy in introducing flexible ICT approaches to the education process and strengthening digital and other key competencies. We devoted a lot of energy to creating some pre-prepared online courses, through which our participants learned about similar content as in the classic workshops. The response from the participants was excellent, as expected. Our video production on the youtube channel has much more visits and views than many andragogical organizations. Our work gives us optimism that we are working in the right direction, that we are doing well and that we need to persevere on this path.

During the visit, we paid a lot of attention to quality video production, documentaries with a clear message and the narrative style of execution. Here we also replayed the so-called Bezzo’s concept, which relies on narration in which he introduces storytelling and opens a debate of the participants. We believe that the concept of endless videoconferencing based on a parrot iteration of keys from different PowerPoint presentations is too wrong to be based on quality knowledge exchange. On the other hand, even the best narrators find it difficult to express themselves in online lectures if the subject is not presented in a top production (eg with a studio performance, cameras that cover several angles and a director who can interactively order the length of different sequences). Introducing other, more flexible concepts and work methodologies for knowledge transfer is an art that you learn a lot based on experience. The concept’s success in terms of number, homogeneity, and especially the current ‘mood’ of a particular group is often unknown, which is difficult to estimate with great certainty in advance.

When we gathered our impressions after the visit, we also found that we need more extended visits to some organizations in the future. There are too many vital details hidden in the realistically performed operational activities that you perform during study visits, which are even more important for developing knowledge and the transfer of good practices. In three days, you can learn a lot, and you can always set the starting point for further work, which you can later, with a more extended visit, upgrade to the extent that it will be effective for all active groups and users.

Finally, we can emphasize that we also felt great in this mobility, for which we thank the hosts once again. In addition to the work program, they also prepared many other activities and gatherings with various stakeholders to get to know and understand the local community better. We connected with other local cross-sectoral community actors and discussed more concrete conceptual proposals by introducing digitalization into learning processes.