The ALCN Executive

Sharing Insights: Australian Learning Cities: global to local - local to global
 

This was the first time that Australian members of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) – Melton, and Wyndham, Victoria, and Circular Head, Tasmania, and those cities aspiring to become members – Wollongong, NSW, and Canning, Western Australia came together to talk about how their communities, faced with turbulent times, were adapting, and learning from one another in their long-term aim build healthy and resilient cities through learning, which contributes to the UN Sustainability Goals.

David Atchoarena outlined the basic principles of the GNLC – to facilitate and exchange good practices between members of the network. Members of the GNLC include all regions of the work and are coordinated by the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL). Currently, there are 229 members and membership is increasing. The cities are of various sizes. The Australian members make a significant contribution to the network and are a source of inspiration for the network and its activities. For example, Melton co-coordinates the inclusion network; last year Wyndham won a Learning City Award and Circular Head’s Study Centre.
 
David reminded us of the criteria for learning cities: 

2022 Expressions of Interest
Now Open!
 

The first informal Friday Forum was held on Friday 6 May 3-4 pm. The topic for session one was ‘What do learning cities do? Exploring learning city initiatives.’
 
Lara Pugh, Learning City Leader, Wollongong City Council, facilitated a lively conversation and noted the following questions that were posed and answers given.
How do we get internal buy-in and commitment across our Councils so that we can establish learning cities?

• Build a strong business case showcasing precedence in other Councils. What is the Return on Investment (ROI) for lifelong learning/learning cities? Demonstrate that lifelong learning is Council business.
• Advocate for a designated role to ‘investigate the feasibility of becoming a learning city’.
• Take a ‘Collective Impact’ approach and bring everyone along for the ride – the project officer is the broker and part of a ‘backbone’ organisation (Social Impact model).
• Establish internal governance with Council, Community Facilitators, Educators and others at both operation and strategic levels for a finite timeframe to achieve shared goals and outcomes (e.g. establish a more coordinated approach to community education at Council; map Council’s lifelong learning assets; develop a shared evaluation framework that measures impact, tells human stories and [somehow] communicates the ROI).
• Conduct briefings at all levels on progress and outcomes. 

• Ask your internal networks to share their contacts and introduce you.
• Create a cross-sector map of different organisations/community groups in your city and try and meet with at least one organisation in each sector.
• When you meet with them, ask them about their business and clients – listen and learn so you can begin to understand their needs and what assets you already have in your community (don’t want to duplicate).
• One practitioner said her community is a fast-growing community and she often struggles to understand how they can get diverse community groups to engage with community learning in their community learning centres. She thinks perhaps they don’t feel welcome in these places. Leone said one solution was to bring activities to the people in their communities to build trust and relationships.  

• One practitioner recommended the Jeder Institute – this organisation promotes asset-based community engagement which is similar to a collective impact approach where you bring together a cross-section of your city to develop a shared agenda that meets organisations’ needs and community needs. Leone noted that this is similar to an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach (see the work of McKnight and Kretzmann).
• Try to see where the gaps are and understand what role the Learning City initiative could play to enhance what is already happening in your city, for example, build networks and broker relationships
• An example cited is Western BACE – a business and community incubator facility - that work with Melton Learning City. BACE use lifelong learning to support youth at risk. 
• We all agree that we’d like to learn more about how you calculate the ROI for lifelong learning/learning cities and this will be discussed at the session on evaluation.

Next sessions:

Join your ALCN colleagues from Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales for an informal discussion on different aspects of building a learning city.

 Dates and themes are:

• Friday 3 June 3-4 pm:
  Mapping lifelong learning assets in your organisation and city - (notes from this session will be included in the next newsletter).
• Friday 1 July 3-4 pm:
  Evaluating the efforts, outcomes and impact of learning city/lifelong learning initiatives
• Friday 5 August 3-4 pm: Localising the Sustainable development Goals for your learning city

Each session will encourage participants to share their different approaches, the challenges they face and their wins. Come join in the conversation!
 
Email Lara Pugh Project Leader Learning City at Wollongong City Council [email protected] if you’d like to participate.

Brimbank City Council 



Recently I caught up with Danielle Marie, Learning & Partnerships Coordinator, and Cassandra Connelly, Learning Officer in the Community Learning and Participation, Brimbank City Council. It was a lovely change for me to meet these practitioners in their community!  As identified in the ALCN Annual Report, they are having a busy year which includes starting the planning for a new Learning Strategy to replace Brimbank Lifelong Learning Strategy 2018-2023.  They are starting by evaluating the 2018-2023 Strategy and then undertaking community consultation for the next strategy. One interesting point made by Cassandra was that she is finding that her role is about making connections. She has a facilitator role and often finds herself as a 'knowledge bank' for learning resources, both internal resources within Council and externally as well. 

Wollongong City Council
The Libraries have developed a series of learning posters to get the word out about lifelong learners in the Wollongong community who are making a great contribution. Here is the story of Melahat. Very inspiring!


 

For further information contact:

Dr. Leone Wheeler
Hon. CEO, Australian Learning Communities

Mobile: 0456 038 236.  Email: [email protected]
ALCN website www.alcn.com.au
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