Building Community Lifelong Learning Hubs – 2023

An enriched community learning hub encourages participants (students, faculty, community leaders) to contribute as co-learners, contributors and curators. Though the focus for some participants may be to develop skills such as digital literacy, others might require ways to connect with community leads to get referrals to employment and volunteering opportunities, community services and programs; others might seek information about training programs, learn first-hand about careers, or connect with mentors to learn how to set up a small business, or develop their language skills. Still others might want a way of communicating with community influencers.

Such a network, however, needs to have several key ingredients:

1. A flat organizational hierarchy, with individuals and employers and community leaders acting as equals to act synergistically towards building up mutual information sharing, referral networks,  and learning opportunities.

2. A core group of skills development facilitators who act as study circle facilitators, mentors and autonomous lifelong learners who work to foster one’s own and others’ contributions towards lifelong learning;

3. A network of mutual support partnerships in place between individuals and various local groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, training providers, community groups, service agencies, civic leaders, private companies, and community influencers.

4. A way to develop, build and maintain resource sharing and exchange of skills and knowledge among the various groups, in the forms of both an online learning network and a number of session facilitators led by different community organizations and institutions

5. A number of lifelong learning hubs (such as the local College campus or the local Public Library within the community that act as skills exchange hubs, idea incubators, and learning spaces.

6. A community learning network can bring resources together and act as a bridge to create more discussions and information sharing among key community information providers, but it would require the efforts of all to contribute towards a distributed lifelong learning agenda that benefits everyone.

LIFELONG LEARNING PROJECT – Activities

• Asks  individuals who would like to share their knowledge, experience and respond to requests to provide information interviews, or to invite them to visit in person as a guest speaker and visit the study circle participants
• Asks participants to interview and prepare recorded talks with community social service organizations about their services, events, and programs as part of a podcast
• Asks community leaders, service organizations and employers to agree to access to information interviews and work with study circle participants  as mentors to prepare talks, presentations, and commentary.