Foundation Ludoviko Zamenhof
Draft of the project
“S+2” (Somere+2 - Summer+2)
Background
As European Union has officially stated, languages are one of the key features for cultural identity. As a consequence, a multilanguage system is one of the core concepts for Europe. Along the years, European Union has prepared many projects aiming to spread language knowledge among its citizens.
The European Council in Barcelona (Spain, 2002) has set the ambitious goal of “native language plus two (other languages)” for every citizen. After some years, we are still far away from reaching it. The proposed program is going towards the directions of the official European politics on languages, with the aim of:
- advance language learning and diversity
- advance healthy mulilanguage economy
- advance social integration through a better knowledge and acceptance of languages
The project
The aim of the project is to group in the same place and at the same time a few hundreds young people, interested in language learning. With the draft name “Plus 2”, it explicitly calls the European Council in Barcelona and the strategic European priorities for a multilanguage system.
The main points are:
- language learning is not limited only to grammar. As a language represents a culture, every language will be presented together with the characteristics of the nations which speak that language. The students will not attend just a language course, but a more complete training about European history and culture.
- Inspired by the Barcelona Council, every student will choose two languages, preferably at least one from the minority/less spoken group.
- The students will not be passive during the lectures, but theywill have the opportunity to present their culture and language, and interact with other young persons from different countries, enhancing their horizonts and strengthening the feeling of European citizenship.
The idea is to organize the event on a yearly basis, for two consecutive weeks, at the University of Białystok.
The consortium
The project will be run by a consortium, which needs to be constituted by at least five partners from five different European countries. Coordinator of the project is
Fundacja im. L. Zamenhofa (Foundation Zamenhof).
Other partners have been contacted / need to be contacted. They can be university, schools, culture centres, libraries, editors, mass media, government organisations.
It is foreseeable that representatives from the Consortium will meet regularly, to prepare the project and to constantly evaluate its evolution and results.
Founding
There are four different sources to cover the expenses:
- sponsorship from European Union, mainly through the Lifelong Learning Program (subprogram KA2 languages – Multilateral Networks)
- sponsorship from university and language institutes, which are not members of
the Consortium, who can send the teachers with no charge for the project
- sponsorship from external sponsors, who are interested in advertising a certain language or commerical sponsors interested itto the domain of young people
- learning fees from the students. However, it is to be as low as possible, to allow to as many people as possible, from every European country, to take part to the event.
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Other languages:
esperanto
polish
french
italian
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