Peter Kearns's blog

I recently posted a note about the Cork and Limerick Lifelong Learning Festivals in the context of an article by the co-ordinators of both festivals in the current issue of the Irish Adult Learner 2013 journal. My note mentioned that Bad Tölz in southern Germany has conducted very successful learning and health festivals for some years. Information on the Bad Tölz festivals is now available in the attached short paper by Denise Reghenzani-Kearns and Romina Prudent.

Please find featured below and attached for download, a paper on planning for the Shanghai Forum on Lifelong Education which will be held on 15 November immediately before the Hong Kong conference. Denise and I will participate and are preparing papers. The Forum is more ambitious than I expected and is now seen as “a permanent and international summit forum on lifelong education and learning city” and so is something we should take into account in any PASCAL activity in the learning city area beyond 2014.

The city of Cork has again shown its capacity for innovation by being the first city in Ireland to establish a Food Policy Council. This initiative is being linked to EcCoWell development in Cork, and will have cross representation between the EcCoWell planning group and the new Food Policy Council.

The city of Cork will follow up on its innovative EcCoWell seminar in March during the Tenth Cork Lifelong Learning Festival by hosting an International Seminar on 26-27 September to examine the subject "Cities for the Future : Learning from the Global to the Local".  This will be a conference with a difference which will incorporate the conference, a marketplace for Ideas, site visits to local initiatives, and cultural experiences.

This paper draws on insights from the stimulus papers prepared for cities participating in the PASCAL International Exchanges that relate to the main themes of the PASCAL Cities Learning Together Hong Kong conference.