Since 1996, the Slovenian Lifelong Learning Week (LLW) has been paving the way for a profound understanding and implementation of the culture of lifelong learning by attracting public attention to thousands of inspiring educational, promotional, information and guidance, as well as social and cultural events. The festival has grown into a movement which annually involves several hundreds of institutions, NGOs, interest groups and other stakeholders.

On March 4, 2020 coordinators of Lifelong Learning Weeks were gathered in Ljubljana, capitol of Slovenia, to start a series of training session on global education. The first session was conducted by Patricija Virtič, Bridge 47 national officer for Slovenia and head of Global Education at SLOGA (Slovene NGO platform for development, global education and humanitarian aid).

27 participants were eager to listen to the current situation in the world, such as distribution of knowledge, money and power. What are global trends and why we can’t escape globalization? What is the role of global citizenship education or education in general in modern world? What are Sustainable Development Goals and how we can help reach them in the next decade?

The second part of the training was an introduction to migration, a natural phenomenon and one of the characteristics of our time in our increasingly connected world. This phenomenon makes a significant contribution to all aspects of economic and social development worldwide and, as such, will be one of the keys to achieving the Global Goals. They also present a challenge of global education and lifelong learning for permanent residents and migrants.

In conclusion, Ms. Virtic presented ways for future collaboration, resource libraries and tools that coordinators can use not only during Lifelong Learning Weeks, but also during their daily work. She also invited them to join Bridge 47 activities and sign up to newsletters.

We are planning the next training for LLW coordinators, which is, due to current situation in Slovenia, going to be online.

The Slovenian Lifelong Learning Week is the most prominent promotional campaign in the field of education and learning in Slovenia. Partners in this complex performance have taken the challenge of raising public awareness of the omnipresence and importance of learning - in all life-periods and for all roles one assumes as an individual or member of a family, workplace or society as a whole. All partners engaged in the creation of the LLW project - either as LLW providers/coordinators or as visitors to events - contribute to the realisation of the slogan ‘Slovenia, a learning country'. Further more, through the learning festival we support the implementation of strategic documents concerning the development of education and training systems in Europe. The Slovenian Lifelong Learning Week is a member of the international learning festivals' (IntALW) movement which has been coordinated by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in Hamburg, Germany. Nowadays, the movement embraces more than 40 learning festivals throughout the world. At the national level, the LLW is coordinated by the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education (SIAE).