In a small ceremony, Lord Mayor Frank Frühauf presented the 'Municipal Education Folders' of the Hunsrück-Hochwald Education Network to representatives of the children's and youth education facilities in the national park town of Idar-Oberstein. Alexander Hauck, Managing Director of Regionalentwicklung Hunsrück-Hochwald e. V., had previously handed over the folders to Mayor Frühauf in the presence of District Councillor Peter Simon.
"Explore, experience, understand and appreciate the region" - this is the motto of the Hunsrück-Hochwald Education Network, a project of the Hunsrück-Hochwald Regional Development Association and the Erbeskopf and Hunsrück LAGs. Extracurricular, regional learning supports the next generation in building a connection to their homeland and forms the basis that enables children and young people to internalize natural and cultural offerings through experiential and action-oriented learning. The Education Network project makes an important contribution to this and provides educational professionals with an overview of all the learning opportunities available locally outside of daycare centers and schools. For this purpose, the municipal education folders contain a list sorted by topic with a brief description of the learning opportunities. The educational folder for the town of Idar-Oberstein is 185 pages long and presents 135 educational opportunities in local or supra-regional extracurricular learning locations in the Hunsrück-Hochwald National Park region and in the town of Idar-Oberstein. The documented offers range from supra-regional sights and nature experience programs, cultural sites and museums to local individual actors and companies such as beekeepers, agricultural and craft businesses that want to convey their activities or their 'passion'. Nature and environmental protection is another thematic focus.
"I am delighted that so many representatives from daycare centers and schools are here to receive their education folders in person," explained Mayor Frühauf as he handed over the folders. He thanked Alexander Hauck for the commitment of the regional development association in creating the folders. "The council and administration also attach great importance to the expansion of educational and extracurricular activities," said Frühauf. He welcomed the fact that this project focuses on the region's offerings in order to bring them closer to the next generation.
District councillor Peter Simon emphasized that the district is proud of the good development in the education sector. He also welcomed the approach of making the regional offers even better known. "Because if you want to discover the world, you should start on your own doorstep and then move outwards in concentric circles". He wished the institutions much joy in using the educational folders.
"Education creates knowledge, knowledge creates values. And these values are the basic framework for our social coexistence," said Alexander Hauck, explaining the approach to creating the education folders and thanking Carmen Grasmück, who had been instrumental in driving the project forward. According to Hauck, the master plan for regional development had already identified educational landscapes as the foundation for all other subject areas. And experience to date has shown that both children and adults have a lot of fun using the folders. "The fact that they can switch from a passive to an active role and experience something for themselves is particularly well received." However, this also applies to the providers of the extracurricular learning locations, who have the opportunity to share their knowledge or skills with others. "The town of Idar-Oberstein is now the keystone in this project, so to speak," explained Alexander Hauck. The municipalities of Baumholder, Herrstein-Rhaunen, Thalfang, Morbach, Hermeskeil and Birkenfeld had already received the folders. However, the handover of the folders was actually just the beginning, as the project now needs to be filled with life through the use of the offers and further developed in the future.
After an initial review, the educational folders also met with a positive response from the representatives of the daycare centers and schools, some of whom were involved in developing the content: "If the folder had been available during my training, it would have been a great help with the project work." or "I wasn't aware of the project before, but it's a great thing and contains lots of new ideas for our activities." were two of the responses.
The Hunsrück-Hochwald Regional Development Association was founded in 2016 and has set itself the goal of strengthening the structure and economy of the national park region. To this end, it initiates its own projects, such as the creation of the regional development master plan, the Hunsrück-Hochwald education network and a bike action plan. The association actively supports integrated rural development as well as joint initiatives in project implementation and the acquisition of funding for the entire region. The association currently has around 20 members: in addition to districts, municipalities and towns, these include other institutions and associations as well as companies and private individuals.
Information about the association can be found at www.regionalentwicklungsverein.de. The contents of the educational folders are also available online at www.regionale-bildung.de.