Radio ECCA, Fundación Canaria
Radio ECCA was founded in 1965 in the Canary Islands (Spain), with the mission to bring education to people in remote and rural areas. Over the years, Radio ECCA has transformed into an established adult learning centre, becoming a national benchmark. The foundation has based its headquarter in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, but it operates, with additional offices, in all the Canary Islands and in the whole Spanish territory. Moreover, it is also present in Latin America and West Africa. Radio ECCA has developed its own distance teaching system - the ECCA System, which embeds the use of ICT and radio to conduct educational work. It has developed more than 400 adults’ training programmes (VET). The staff designs, produces, and provides the varied training offer at the regional, national, and international level. Radio ECCA focuses its work on the promotion of adult education, entrepreneurship, gender promotion, social inclusion, rural development, citizenship, ICT, and innovation. Through its action, the foundation can reach different target groups: adult learners, families at risk of exclusion, women, unemployed people, entrepreneurs, migrants & refugees, people from rural areas, etc. The organisation’s structure covers all needed areas to make the project action impactful: Direction; Education & Innovation; Social Action; ICT & Digital Services; Projects and International Cooperation, Administration; Communication, Radio & Marketing; Human Resources; and Institutional Relations. Radio ECCA has extensive experience in EU programmes in the areas of education, social innovation, entrepreneurship, remote and rural regions’ development, and citizens' civic engagement. Relevant examples are:
• Solopreneur (Erasmus+) – Self-employability in remote and rural regions of Europe. Radio ECCA develops educational material and training to support unemployed people.
• LEAP (Erasmus+) – Enhanced adult participation in formal and informal learning. Radio ECCA co-creates learning tools with policy-makers to promote the importance of adults’ long-life learning.
• AprOEP (Erasmus+) – Exchange of good practices and experiences to establish new ways of education. Radio ECCA and the partners explore and promote non-formal education tools, including digital ones.
• TOMes (Erasmus+) – Language acquisition training of refugees and migrants. Radio ECCA and the partnership focus on language skills of migrants and support their social and labour inclusion. In this project, Radio ECCA works with female migrants.
• AFRIMAC (Interreg) – Promotion of business and technological exchange with West Africa. Radio ECCA delivers courses in entrepreneurship and designs and implements actions for labour insertion of African population in international environments, with a special focus on women.
As for international cooperation, Radio ECCA works with women in most isolated and rural parts of Senegal, Guinea Bissau, and Mauritania, to promote literacy, health promotion and entrepreneurship. Among the numerous national educational actions, Radio ECCA is focused on social action, technology, and labour insertion of vulnerable categories. Worth mentioning are the following activities:
• Co-creation of digital courses for people with disability, with direct learners and experts from key national institutions such as the ONCE
• Spanish Organisation of Blind People.
• Training and support of female migrants in rural areas (4,800 stakeholders reached by the project).
• Gender equality promotion and fight against gender violence (85 women victims of violence trained).
• Training courses for women and unemployed people conducted in 7 Autonomous Regions, including learners coming from remote areas.
