Sankofa Festival

FCDL are leading an interregional partnership programme of events celebrating and promoting the importance of informal learning as a route collective learning activities taking place during October 09. These activities value the self defined activities within processes which help the development skills, knowledge and experiences that underpin community development values and practice. FCDL is committed to supporting informal community development as an essential part of the wider pathways for learning for community development practice.

The Learning Revolution White Paper sets out the Government’s commitment to develop a new vision and strong infrastructure for informal adult learning. The Department of Business Innovation and Skills is supporting this programme of informal community development learning which links to a wider festival of events they are supporting during October 2009.

Informal community development learning is one of the areas left underfunded yet it often offers the most flexible opportunities for widening participation and supporting community groups and community development practitioners to define the focus and process of learning.

We aim to provide evidence of the value of informal community development learning to support accessible and appropriate activities that encourages community members and groups to define, develop and deliver changes for the benefit of their communities.

We are using the symbol of the Sankofa Bird for the festival work. Sankofa is a mythical bird from Ghana which represents the importance of reflecting on past experiences in order to learn from them in order to shape future actions. We are promoting this reflection and action process through the activities taking place in the North East, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, South East and South West during October 09.