Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) training was held on February 6-7 in Ljubljana. The overall aim of the meeting was members from the 6 countries (Greece, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Austria and Slovenia) that will be the implementation part of the project to be trained in the PLA method. Initially the participants presented themselves and their role in the project by “playing” a game choosing different cards. A general introduction to PLA was done and was explained why it is being used in the EUR-HUMAN project. According Chambers PLA is a growing family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyse their knowledge of life and conditions, and to plan, act and monitor and evaluate. It can be used in qualitative researches, in participatory action research and in community based participatory research. In PLA stakeholders are considered to have expert knowledge of their own lives and experiences and that enables them to participate, learn and act in a co-operative and democratic manner to achieve agreed goals. Despite cultural, lingual and other differences all voices and perspectives are counted. The proposed method gives emphasis on dialogues to identify problems and to create workable solutions by involving all the stakeholders from the beginning to the finish. PLA Creates a safe and positive space for stakeholders from different backgrounds to work in partnership together promotes reciprocity and mutual respect.
During the meeting except the PLA training were discussed that local teams are responsible for asking approval of local ethical committee and about the stakeholders involved. The local sites, target groups, the number of sessions, the origin of refugees were discussed too.
