Peer Support & Resilience
In Adult Education
A 14-month journey dedicated to the wellbeing of those who give so much to others: educators, volunteers, workshop facilitators and community-builders.
Together with Tugende in Bologna, we are developing sustainable ways for teams in the social sector to stay emotionally grounded, connected and supported, so they can continue serving their communities with strength and clarity.
Why We Started This Journey
Working with marginalized communities is deeply meaningful but it can also be draining. Through our daily work, we see volunteers and educators juggling emotional pressure, shifting roles, high responsibility and limited support structures. Many NGOs across Europe face the same challenges: dedicated people burning out because the systems around them do not care for the carers.
What Do We Do
By the end of the project, we want educators and volunteers to feel more grounded, confident, and supported, and both organizations to have a sustainable peer-support system in place.
We aim to create a practical, accessible handbook that other NGOs can use, strengthen European collaboration and shared learning, and ultimately improve wellbeing for the 300 marginalized learners we reach each month, because supported educators can support others better.
What Do We Do?
We explore one guiding question: how can educators and volunteers stay resilient in demanding social environments?
To answer this, we exchange methods between our teams in Berlin and Bologna, learn from each other’s creative, body based, and psychoeducational approaches, and test peer-support practices with educators and volunteers. We develop a clear structure for regular intervision and shared reflection, turn our learnings into a practical handbook for other organizations, and share the results through local trainings and an EU wide webinar.
How It Works
We meet and learn from each other through an international visit to Bologna, where we exchange methods, needs, realities, and best practices.
We test everything in real life during an eight month training and peer-learning phase, including cross-training workshops and structured intervision for educators and volunteers.
We turn our learning into tools for others through a second international meeting in Berlin, the creation and translation of a practical handbook, and sharing our results with our networks and the wider European community.
Our Handbook
You can download the full handbook here in three languages, providing accessible guidance for educators across different cultural and linguistic contexts.
Disclaimer
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Haftungsausschluss
Von der Europäischen Union finanziert. Die geäußerten Ansichten und Meinungen entsprechen jedoch ausschließlich denen des Autors bzw. der Autoren und spiegeln nicht zwingend die der Europäischen Union oder der Europäischen Exekutivagentur für Bildung und Kultur (EACEA) wider. Weder die Europäische Union noch die EACEA können dafür verantwortlich gemacht werden.