Working groups list: ANPE

ANPE - Alberta Network of Popular Educators

The purpose of our organization is to create a network of popular educators and trainers in Alberta. The purpose of having a network is to build on existing skills as educators but also to act as resources for organizations and groups that would like training and education on certain topics, such as action planning. Popular education is a theory and method of education where learning begins from experience and this experience can be reflected upon, analysed and acts as a catalyst for new action and change. It is also about utilizing the different and diverse resources in communities. Popular education means that we are all teachers and learners and interchange these roles.

Our Vision

The vision of our working group is to produce and share useful knowledge among community organizations, their members, academic community and social activists. Our vision comes from our experiences in social movements and as popular educators in Alberta and elsewhere. We feel that many students, community groups, labour unions, activists, teachers and academics are looking for more training resources and looking for new ideas/models.

We also feel that there is a wealth and knowledge of experience in Edmonton and Alberta that would be stronger and benefit from a network that promotes sharing of ideas, skills and movement building. Our vision is also to be a catalyst for strategic, long term and sustainable movement building in Alberta from north to south. Particularly we feel there is a need to remobilize and rebuild the community of activism in Edmonton. Working in the creation of networks means to know and diffuse the resources that exist in our communities, systemize them to allow for greater access and define priorities for social change and organizing. This project will be the foundation to become an incorporated workers cooperative of popular educators and trainers for social justice under the cooperative laws of Alberta.

Objectives

To facilitate working partnerships between the university and community organizations engaged in popular education, participatory research and social change.

To change and shift relationships of power and all of our workshops, activities and materials will seek to name and transform those power differences whether they are political, social or economic.

Create, and recreate, memory and history of social struggles and those events and ideas that have large impacts locally internationally and nationally. Reflecting and remembering will assist in development of new strategies for social change and social justice.

To train individuals around their labour and human rights.

To train individuals in the skills of negotiation, intermediation and creation of collective projects as these abilities are being lost under the economic, political and social model of neo-liberalism and more specifically as the province of Alberta legislates this model.

Assist in movement building and providing training for strategic thinking about ways of building collective projects in Alberta.

Assist and provide support to popular educators outside of Edmonton in rural communities through our website, training materials and workshops.

Mandate

To create a network of popular educators and trainers in the province of Alberta.

To create a space for reflection on past social movement building in Alberta.

We are committed to working for change in partnership with various social movements and organizations and recognize that effective change requires the active participation of all sectors of our communities.

To promote and give support to intitivaves, ideas and experiences from persons that are not part of a formal network. Network of persons involved in the non-formal economy and build research and workshops and promote the systemization and reflections of these experiences around this.

To promote and organize exchange for community members and educators from different generations and places in the province of Alberta.

To create workshops, tools and resources.

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