about Toucan

news

» Read the second issue of the ECUBE members update newsletter (PDF, 507 Kb)

» Read the October edition of GMY Network's, 'News from the Network' (PDF, 541 Kb)

December 2005

Office closed over festive season

The Toucan office will be closed from 13:00 on 23rd December and will re-open at 9:00 on 3rd January. We would like to wish all our partners and visitors to our website a Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

November 2005

Real and Virtual Texture - RAVT

The first meeting of the Socrates Grundtvig training project will take place in Palermo, Sicily from the 25th to the 29th of November.

The project partners will meet to complete the planning of the activities for year one to develop and design a new online training course, year 2 will see the delivery of the new courses.

More information is available on the RAVT project page.

Motivation to employment (M2E)

The ECube partners will be travelling to Lyon, France for the next series of transnational meetings, this is the start of a series of study groups that will continue throughout 2006.
See the ECube project page for background.

Face to Face

Face to Face...Open to all youth groups in the North West

A new and exciting environmental Youth Project?
It’s up to you!!!!

Are you a young person aged between 12 - 21 who has an interest in environmental issues?
or
Are you a person who works with young people in the above category?

If you are, visit the GMYN website, or contact Les at GMYN.
Email: les.mccarthy@toucan-europe.co.uk
Phone: 0161 273 5122

RURAL CHANGE

The transnational project recently held a study visit and management meeting in Wrexham – 19 people from the partnership project managers, entrepreneurs, met for 2 days at the Lyndir Hall hotel near Wrexham. For further project information see:
http://www.ruralchange.com

The meeting took place at the same time as the Wrexham Business week, partners attended a number of sme meetings.
See http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/business/business_week.htm
More information can be found on the projects page.

CATCH II

The second year of activities recommence on Friday 18th November in Malmo. The partners are meeting to review the work plan and published reports from year 1, major conferences are planned to be held in Vienna and Malmo during 2006.
See the project page for background.

October 2005

Forward to Basics

Toucan have been successful in gaining NLDC funding to run a project aimed at helping people in the Ardwick, Longsight and Levenshulme area improve their basic skills.

The project will offer a mixture of informal learning opportunities as well as giving people the chance to work towards a level 1 qualification in IT. We will also be supporting some of our existing learners to act as community champions to promote learning and encourage people to join the project.

More information about the Forward to Basics project will be available soon.

July 2005

Successful applications for Grundtvig learning partnership

Toucan with its partners has been successful in gaining a second years funding for the Barriers to Employment project – we hope this year to develop exchanges between students.

In partnership with ASSOCIATION FOR UNION AND SOLIDARITY OF WOMEN from Ankara, Turkey, we have been successful in the partnership to develop “Women in Enterprise”.

Further information about this project will be available in September.

June 2005

Toucan Trust – Visions for the Future

We have been successful in securing funding from the Big Lottery for 2 years, the project in partnership with Manchester Libraries, Manchester Adult Education Service is aimed at all visually impaired people, for whom the path to lifelong learning, training and employment is far from straightforward, especially those who are seeking a new or different focus following the deterioration of their vision.

Brian Shepherd, the newly appointed project worker, will start work on 13th June and be based at the visually impaired unit at central library.

The Russell Commission Report

The Russell Commission was established in 2004 to carry out research with the aim of developing a National Youth Volunteering Strategy. The report was published in March this year.
» a PowerPoint show presenting the recommendations of the report

May 2005

EDEN Development Partnership Conference
Lifelong Learning: Innovation in Greater Manchester

The EDEN Development Partnership would like to invite you to a half day conference, on Wednesday 25th May 2005, at Britannia Hotel, Manchester, 9.30 am -12.30 pm.

The conference will focus on innovative lifelong learning projects in Greater Manchester and disseminate the lessons and good practice from EDEN projects.

Some of the themes that will be explored include among others: researching barriers to employment for people with disability; social enterprise for BME communities; using web communities to empower deaf people; training for people with sensory impairments; business skills for prisoners.
» visit the Eden project page for more details

April 2005

Brussels Employment Week

Toucan, along with three of the ECUBE project partners, visited the Brussels Employment Week Event from 12th to 14th April. The aim of the visit, as well as attending Employment Week, was also to establish a Transnational Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with STADS2, a regeneration organisation in Brussels.

The ECUBE partners’ involvement in the trip was to develop links with transnational partners, aided by a set of study visits. The three ECUBE partners - Manchester Youth Volunteer Project (MYVP), Aspire, and Greater Manchester Youth Network (GMYN), spent a day meeting with the Brussels partners, STADS2, Fire Gym, City Mine and JES, to discuss their individual projects. The projects that are being run by the partners are very similar but carried out in very different ways, which resulted in a successful set of network meetings and connection between the partners.

EGN – EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE NETWORK

Toucan are national co-ordinators of the EGN project. The project aims to:

• Organise an international seminar for NGO operators
• Develop a web site for European information
• Create an electronic forum on different subjects
• Produce a publication on the governance
• Offer a training course for NGO operators
• Develop national networks of EGN depending on the European network

» visit the EGN website

VOCAGE - Contextualised Agent-Based Learning framework for Vocational Training

Toucan are partners in a new proposal led by the Polythenic University of
Barcelona. This is a 6th Framework proposal addressing Objective 2.4.13 - Strengthening the Integration of ICT research effort in an Enlarged Europe. The partners are from Spain , Slovenia, Germany and UK.
It is hoped that we will receive a favourable evaluation - more news in July.
» VOCAGE project page

March 2005

EGN – EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE NETWORK

Toucan are national co-ordinators of the EGN project. The project aims to:

• Organise an international seminar for NGO operators
• Develop a web site for European information
• Create an electronic forum on different subjects
• Produce a publication on the governance
• Offer a training course for NGO operators
• Develop national networks of EGN depending on the European network

» visit the EGN website

Motivation to Employment Partnership

The first meeting of the Motivation to Employment partnership (M2E) was held in Prague on 3rd March 2005.
The second meeting will take place in Budapest on 4th and 5th April 2005.
The partnership is part of the EQUAL project ECUBE.
Pictured are M2E partners at the end of the meeting in Prague.

February 2005

e-ability project

The first meeting of the e-ability project took place in Valladolid, Spain on Friday 28th January – pictured are the partners from Spain, Latvia, Estonia, UK and Italy.

The project is funded for 1 year through the European Commission e-Learning programme. The project is concerned with digital literacy for people with disabilities.

» go to the e-ability project page for more information

January 2005

ECUBE

EQUAL programme- ECUBE Development Partnership. The DP is very active at this time searching for possible transnational partners – we are initially searching for partners from Slovenia, Netherlands, France and Hungary.

Read more about our recent activities on the ECUBE web page.

Leonardo da Vinci project - Again-st Abandon

We are at an exciting phase in the project activities – we are working in partnership with Fielden Park YC STEPS project to collect the views of young people on why they drop out of school.
A further transnational meeting will take place in Latvia in late March.
» Again-st Abandon project page

e-ability project

A new project starts this month with a management meeting in Valladolid, Spain. The e-ability project brings together partners from Spain, Italy, Latvia, Estonia and UK to look at access to e-learning for people with disabilities.

» A summary of Toucan Group's activities in previous years is available on the about Toucan page