The award was announced during the webinar ‘SOCIEUX+ e-learning award: lessons learned and way forward’ held on 12 September, attended by more than 50 people, which served as well to discuss about peer-to-peer cooperation involving various types of e-learning initiated by SOCIEUX+.
The event was opened by Beata Plonka on behalf of the European Commission (DG International Partnerships), who emphasized SOCIEUX+ as one of the key EU initiatives contributing to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. “SOCIEUX+ plays an important role in our cooperation framework because it is demand-driven and implemented through peer-to-peer exchanges”, she stressed, adding that the Facility “creates valuable knowledge for the cooperation community”.
Afterwards, the winning courses in this first edition were announced by Koen Vleminckx and Sarah Carpentier, from the Knowledge Development area of SOCIEUX+:
- The first prize was won by the ‘E-learning soft skills au Sénégal’ developed by Yann Guégan, Oumkeltoum Bekraddouma, and Christine Piret (FOREM), in the framework of a SOCIEUX+ technical cooperation with the National Agency for the Promotion of Work for Young People (ANPEJ) of Senegal (2021-11 Senegal Act. 3).
- The second was awarded to the e-course on ‘Good practices on public service communication with employers’, produced by Pedro Parra Oncins from the Public Employment Service of Spain (SEPE) and Sara Cruz Romero, mobilized for Pôle Emploi (France) at that moment, in the framework of the SOCIEUX+ cooperation with the Ministry of Work from Ecuador (2021-07 Ecuador Act. 2).
- Finally, the third prize went to the course ‘Empowerment and creation of institutional networks’ on people living with disabilities by the team formed by Maria Pilar Diaz Lopez from the University of Barcelona and Maria João Falcato de Almeida from the Ministry of Work, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal, both mobilized by SOCIEUX+ for a cooperation with the National Secretary of Disability (SENADIS) from Panamá (2021-22 Panama Act. 2.2).
The winning teams shared their enthusiasm for the awards, and highlighted the importance of the complementarity of competences and the immense collaborative potential that the e-learning platform offers for peer-to-peer cooperation. Following their remarks, Sarah Carpentier provided valuable insights gained from the evaluation of the courses, and lessons learned through this process.
Following that, Fausto Saltetti, E-learning specialist at ILO International Training Centre, shared insights on effective engaging strategies in e-learning and finally, Lucía Da Fonte, SOCIEUX+ Associated Officer for E-learning, provided an overview of the use of the platform in the framework of SOCIEUX+.
The platform has been instrumental in fostering peer-to-peer interactions and collaborations among peers since its launch in 2020. To date, more than 100 remote activities have been developed, collaborating with 55 partners and 144 experts in 35 countries. About half of these activities have been developed with our partners in African countries, with a strong emphasis on capacity building activities.
The SOCIEUX+ e-learning platform hosts, in addition to the technical cooperation activities developed with partners, the first open course developed by SOCIEUX+ knowledge development, Acting upon Inequality, which can be accessed here.
