02.07.2015

Winner of EAEA Grundtvig Award 2014 publishes book

The project The Book of Plans Hopes and Dreams, winner of the EAEA Grundtvig Award 2014 in the category “World War I Remembrance Initiatives”, closed in spring 2015. The main part of the project was a writing competition that produced impressive results: 52 very personal and touching texts of young people from Britain, Germany, but also from Australia, India, and Iran.

Dear Ivor,
I heard your voice. I bet you did not think that would happen. But I did.

In letters and poems, the participants of the writing competition addressed real persons that lived in 1914 – grandparents, people from the same town, youth of 1914 – and ask them about how it felt like living during World War I. In a second text, they wrote to a person living in the year 2114 and told them about how they perceived living today – in 2014.

I wonder if you can imagine a hundred years ahead, your youngest granddaughter, and who I might be.

In their intimate texts, the reader feels the authors’ curiosity, their attempts to understand the insanity of war, but also their very own hopes and dream on their own future.

As a child I always wanted to fly. Books, films and air displays thrilled me, promised a future of wings and winds, circling above the arc of the earth, a true freedom.

The book is available now at the project’s homepage (as a pdf, free of charge) at www.book-of-phd.com
Original copies of the book are open to the public and can be read in Blackburn Cathedral, UK, and in Dom Braunschweig, Germany.

 

Text: Felix MeyerPhotos: The Book of Plans Hopes and Dreams

10.02.2026 EAEA Annual Conference

Introducing EAEA’s 2026 Annual Theme: Resilience and Community-Building

EAEA'S 2026 annual theme is closely linked to current EU priorities, especially the Democracy Package - including the Civil Society Strategy and the Democracy Shield initiative. At a time of rising Euroscepticism and threats to democratic values, adult education has the power to strengthen democracy by promoting civic engagement, critical thinking and participation.

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