Madrid is reopening all 68 of its nursery schools, while taking into account new health and safety measures, such as ensuring that schools do not exceed 50% capacity at any one time. This means organising children and teachers into smaller groups that should remain stable over time. Read more here
Contact: Ana Buñuel
With Municipal nursery schools will reopen their doors to students from 0 to 3 years old from July 1, Madrid is also looking to organise urban summer camps that will be operating from the second half of July. Read more here
Contact: Ana Buñuel
The Côte d’Azur University, together with the city, launched the “Open Map of the Global Pause”, a project collecting positive phenomena that have occurred throughout the world, since the beginning of the crisis. Open Map has already collected more than 355 contributions from all over the world. These include natural phenomena, innovations, art and culture, initiatives of solidarity, research and some unusual events. The city plans to use the map as an educational tool in the future. Read more here (in French) and contribute to the map
Contact: Jérôme Sieurin
Cardiff Council is providing thousands of digital devices and broadband dongles via the Welsh Government’s Education Technology Project Fund to support children in Cardiff that have been unable to access online learning during school closures caused by COVID-19. The Council has worked closely with schools across the city to deliver the scheme which seeks to address the issue of digital deprivation. Over 5000 Chromebook or i-Pad devices repurposed from existing schools or purchased and 2500 broadband dongles will be provided. You can read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
Throughout the pandemic, Gdansk has taken a number of measures to ensure that all people had access to information and support, not forgetting the most vulnerable members of society, and, among other things, that children’s education can continue with a minimum of disruption. Please find a partial overview of some of the actions that Gdansk has taken here.
Contact: Joanna Krupadziorow
The Municipality of Guimaraes has instituted a series of measures from housing for homeless people to providing tablets for students to enable distance learning and offering support for tourism focussed micro-enterprises. Read more here
Contact: Crisalia Alves
The team at the Glasgow City Council’s Blairvadach Outdoor Education Centre in Rhu have produced an online workbook which could help parents and children to learn about outdoor education during lockdown.
The centre normally hosts a five day outdoor education residential for pupils from across the city, providing outdoor learning opportunities for young people using activities including hillwalking, canoeing, rock climbing and more. Katie Mackay an Outdoor Education Instructor from Blairvadach said: “Because of Covid-19 and lockdown many schools are missing out on their planned trip which is a big disappointment for the pupils
Contact: Joe Brady
As the weeks go on children and adults are looking for ways to stay entertained at home. The Glasgow Science Centre is continuing to share an exciting programme of lessons online.
Each day the team from #GSCAtHome are sharing a video with an experiment or task. This week includes ‘The Monty Hall’ problem, making oboes from straws and using coat hangers to learn more about soundwaves! In 2020, as our world becomes more and more invested in digital technology, we need more than ever to crack codes and to write them.
Contact: Joe Brady
The Beşiktaş Academy has started offering online classes launching its new Youtube channel. This initiative from the Beşiktaş Municipality has been helping students prepare for high school and university education and also supporting the personal development of our citizens aged 7-90 through culture and art courses. This service will not only enable students who are preparing for their exams to continue studying their lessons but also give citizens the option to learn at any age. Visit the Youtube channel here
Contact: foreignaffairs@besiktas.bel.tr
Ljubljana’s city library is offering a postal service for students and high schoolers seeking study material. This is further facilitated by a wide array of online material, including films and documentaries, and an easy remote registration.
For children and their parents as activities include listening to or reading fairy tales, taking quizzes, drawing and solving riddles. Videos of past cultural events are also available on the library’s YouTube channel.
Contact: Polona Novak
Cardiff is supporting young carers who have to look after a relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition or drug or alcohol problem. Young carers can reach out through WhatsApp group chats, and they can access daily updates and activities to engage with their relatives at home. These include live video chats, workshops and educational videos, as well as information about other support services. Read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
Cardiff’s historic multi-artform venue Chapter presents: ‘Chapter from home’. The initiative offers fun film study, a Young Reporter’s Club, Watch parties, Instagram quizzes and much more, finding new ways to experience the arts. Chapter also organises educational activities with children, for example the ‘News Reporter’s Club’. This initiative empowers them to make their own radio news show about the world they see around them using only pen, paper and a mobile phone. Read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
Techniquest, Cardiff’s science discovery centre, is hosting online science experiments that can be tried at home. People can bring science to life in their own homes by watching ‘How To’ videos and live demonstrations. The latest videos show how to make your own Lava Lamp or learn how to defy the laws of gravity. Viewers are also encouraged to share their own creations with the Techniquest team using the hashtag #TQatHome Read more here
Contact: Beverley Watson
Cardiff has developed a website to support children and young people with emotional and mental health and wellbeing issues in this difficult and challenging time. The city also launched ‘The ‘Diff Diaries’, a platform giving youngsters and children the opportunity to document their activity, thoughts and feelings during the global pandemic by submitting video recordings, photo collages or written diary entries. Music education has also gone digital as Cardiff delivers music tuition, one to one lessons and rehearsals opportunities online. Read more here, here and here
Contact: Beverley Watson
The city will be paying the full amount of the subsidy for non-public nurseries, and asks of them to reduce to a minimum the fixed fees charged to parents. This measure will affect a total of 1,267 places in 31 non-public nurseries. Public nurseries will also be adapting their fees to support parents. Read more here (in Polish)
Contact: Judyta Etmanska
Tallinn has allocated a municipal food supply and 15,000 euro in financial contribution to the NGO Food Bank, it has kept two day-care centres in the city open 24h, the city library is reading books to children via Skype or by phone, and drones are used to give information in Estonian, Russian and English. Download the full overview here (updated version: 30 April 2020)
Contact: Kerttu Märtin
The mayor of Nice is consulting with the directors of the 154 public schools, parents and parents’ representatives, and with a local scientific council. The consultation aims at finding how to best organise the gradual reopening of schools announced by the government. The city has also created a free tutoring app ‘Prof in the pocket’ to help its students. Read more here (in French)
Contact: Jérôme Sieurin
On Thursday 23 April Düsseldorf’s schools opened again for those pupils who are graduating this year. With the help of the city, the schools have adapted to strict hygiene and safety measures and have installed disinfectant dispensers and strict rules of conduct. The other classes will come back gradually after 4 May. More information (in German) here.
Meanwhile the distribution of tablets to schoolchildren who do not have their own tablet goes on in order to make sure that pupils are able to use the online learning platform: Every week 1,000 are being distributed; 23,500 tablets should be distributed by August. So far, 50,000 children are using the platform. More information (in German) here.
Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld
Riga City Council will grant benefits also to foreign students who have remained in Latvia, who study remotely and who do not have the means to provide basic needs. In other measures, the city is offering counselling services to young people, school children and families; and its call centre for seniors is continuing its operation. Read more here
Florence has joined forces with local stakeholders and active citizenship to launch a crowdfunding initiative. Collected funds will help finance projects in areas such as welfare, education and culture. Four projects have already been selected through the platform. These have financed the purchase of medical equipment for a retirement home, a dedicated food delivery system for people in financial difficulty, and the purchase of tablets for students to guarantee access to online education. Read more here (in Italian)
Contact: Alessandra Barbieri
The City of Espoo has reassigned employees from places like libraries and early childhood education into efforts to distribute food. One part of the city’s refocused efforts in this area includes the provision of lunch packages distributed once a week to children currently studying at home. Read more here and here
Contact: Annika Forstén
Espoo is making exciting ideas available to very young children to support their well-being. Families can access weekly activities and tips to be used on their own time. Educators will keep in touch with families with the digital tools at their disposal. Read more here
Contact: Annika Forstén
Bologna’s Institution for Education and Schools (IES) has been offering online educational resources to families with children aged 0-6, to help and keep them entertained, educated and exercised without leaving the house. Since 25 March, the platform has collected a growing list coming directly from the working groups of the municipal nursery and kindergarten, as well as from Children’s and Families’ Centres (Cbf’s): online suggestions and activities, indicatively divided by age groups (0-3 and 3-6) and for free access to all.
Continue reading “Bologna – Activities for children”Brest’s population has digital access to books, films, music, cartoons, art collections, and sport and language courses. The city’s cultural sector was also mobilised for educational purposes, such as creating educational online games, or scientific experiments. Read more here, here, here and here (in French)
Contact: Anne-Marie Cabon
Oulu, in collaboration with OpenDigi, has compiled quality recommendations to follow when offering online education. The city agreed on a set of standards to guarantee quality and clarify the responsibilities of the various parties. It collects a series of rights that address equally students, guardians and educators. Read more here
Contact: Anne Rannali
Both educational and fun – that is the ambition of the online platform ‘School at home’ from the Spanish city of Viladecans. Activities range from baking an Easter cake over math games to watching a short film and reflecting over the emotions represented in the movie. You can read more here
Contact: Alba Martínez García
Milan is providing a personal grocery shopping and delivery service for the elderly thanks to an agreement with food retailers and a charity organisation. Funded by the charity, the program works through a call centre that the elderly can call to place their orders. The orders are prepared and delivered by volunteers. The program serves around 3,000 people and involves 135 educators. Read more here (in Italian)
Contact: Olimpia Vaccarino Aureli
In cooperation with Rey Juan Carlos University, Fuenlabrada’s students volunteer to help pupils from primary and secondary schools with their homework through Whatsapp and video calls. Read more here (in Spanish)
Contact: Juan Carlos Hernández Navas
Dusseldorf’s Youth Department has initiated a free online parenting program which helps parents who struggle to balance teleworking while also taking care of their children. Read more here (in German)
Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld
The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, is inviting children to send in questions about their experiences during the confinement period. The mayor will reply to the messages in a weekly programme which will be broadcasted online first this Saturday, 11 April. The goal is to give children a louder voice, listen to their concerns and make their perspective visible to all. Read more here and visit a special site dedicated to artistic expressions of kids: ‘Barcelona through the eyes of young children‘.
Contact: Marta Puchal
Gdansk municipality is now offering a digital space to share all online activities and events. This will facilitate further communication and promotion of local cultural and economic happenings. Read more here
Contact: Malgorzata Ratkowska
Artists, performers and teachers of Nice’s municipal opera house and music schools are busy creating free content for all. From short audio capsules to extracts from famous operas to building a model of the opera at home with a simple DIY kit. Read more (in French) here
Contact: Jérôme Sieurin
Stuttgart is helping to keep its youth entertained and hopeful through art. An Easter painting competition for three age brackets below 14, and one over, is being held by the city. Read more (in German) here.
The city is also collecting rainbow pictures drawn by children, following the trend of children drawing rainbows and putting them up in their family windows by asking children to also draw rainbows for the windows of the Town Hall. Read more (in German) here.
Contact: Claudia Schulcz
Nice is supporting its Conservatory in giving effective lessons. The dance department offers courses in fitness, ballet history and anatomy, the creation of a chamber ballet, and the exchange of videos of international ballets. The Music department has created a youtube channel for students on the alert. It also offers video exchanges, daily tutorials and skype lessons. Finally, the Theater department has set up a discussion forum. It also offers remote debates on shows, or even video exchanges. Read more (in French) in the attached press release.
Contact: Jérôme Sieurin
Zaragoza is offering free courses on electronic commerce aimed at the SMEs in the city in order to adapt their businesses to the new situation. Four courses are available online: Digital Marketing, Advertising on Internet, Web Analytics, Social Networks in retail. Read more (in Spanish) here.
Contact: Lorena Calvo
The municipal Heinrich-Heine-Institute in Dusseldorf, a museum dedicated to the German poet Heinrich Heine, offers the reading of poems and other texts over the phone during the time it is closed due to the corona regulations. The museum also publishes educational videos, readings and quizzes on Instagram and Facebookto to keep eager Heine fans busy. Read more here (in German).
The municipal Clara Schumann music school offers digital music classes for its students. The lessons are conducted online or via video messages, students receive their music sheets online and send their rehearsed recordings to the teacher. Read more here (in German)
Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld
To support families in the current situation, the City of Leipzig has set up a phone hotline, available from 8am – 6pm, 7 days a week. Experienced personnel from the fields of childcare, school social work and youth work answer questions ranging from how to keep children occupied to Corona-related rules affecting families. They also provide educational counselling. The goal is to offer low-threshold support to families in a time of restricted social contacts. Read more here
Contact: Christin Rettke
On the Besiktas Municipality YouTube channel, programmes filled with educational and colourful content specifically for children are now being broadcast. Programmes include theatre and puppet shows, storytelling shows and films. See more here:
Contact: foreignaffairs@besiktas.bel.tr
The city of Amsterdam has announced a 50 million emergency fund to take necessary measures during the Corona crisis. With this fund the city can provide things like laptops to children who lack these facilities at home and free parking licenses for health professionals. In the coming weeks more actions will be announced. Read more here
Contact: Julia Robeer
Madrid has launched an online platform ‘Conecta Juventud 2.0’ which now has almost 80,000 participants. The project has more than 40 activities available for young people to carry out from their homes under themes such as art, health, sports, personal care, solidarity, legal advice, science and new technologies. Read more (in Spanish) here.
Madrid has also joined the # PHEdesdemibalcón campaign. The PHotoESPAÑA International Photography Festival encourages citizens to send snapshots they take during these weeks from their balcony. Read more (in Spanish) here.
Contact: Ana Buñuel
Since Espoo turned to distance learning, the city and teachers have learned the importance of clarity, the best methods, the role of the teacher and wellbeing of the child. Read about the city’s experience here.
Contact: Annika Forstén
Madrid’s family support centers have drafted several guidelines for families to help them through the period of staying inside together. These range from ‘dealing with confinement with adolescents’ to care-giving to elderly family members. The guidelines are available for download (in Spanish) here.
Contact: Ana Buñuel
Bamberg – educational resources on the internet
While schools are temporarily closed, Bamberg has established an online platform that contains exercises and working materials for students. These materials serve a dual function, as they also relate to Bamberg’s cultural heritage. Read more (in German) here.
Contact: Patricia Alberth
To ensure equal access to education for all, which has largely moved online, The Hague is distributing 330 laptops to families on low incomes. Read more here
Contact: Danijela Blagojevic
Torino City Love lists a number of free online resources and actions offered by the city’s partners and other businesses from Italy and beyond. The offer includes resources on education, health, connectivity, collaboration solutions, tools to work and/or study remotely, collaboration solutions, and connectivity. Read more here and here (in Italian) for more measures
Contact: Antonella Detta
The museum StadtPalais in Stuttgart is going fully digital. Under the title ‘Online for you’, a varied programme of interactive live tours, digital visits and media guides for home are offered, as well as online workshops for children and families, speed runs and live guests. The whole programme is for free.
Continue reading “Stuttgart – Digital art tours”The City of Espoo encourages residents to enjoy a wide variety of online culture and sports services offered by the city and its partners.
Continue reading “Espoo – Sports and culture in your home”Rome’s libraries are making their catalogue available online for free with the #cultureathome campaign. People can subscribe for a free membership that will give them access to over 7100 periodicals from 90 countries in 40 different languages, the main national and international newspapers, and widely circulated magazines. Users will also be able to borrow from 2 to 4 e-books. Read more here
Contact: Tamara Lucarelli
Warsaw launched several virtual broadcasts showcasing the natural world, serving both educational and recreational purposes. The videos show how employees of the city zoo take care of animals, or teach interesting facts about the animal world. People can also take a digital stroll in Lasy Miejskie, the City Forest of Warsaw, and teach their kids how to behave when in the forest. Read more here
Contact: Natalia Boitot
Zaragoza has launched a platform for corporate solidarity contributions. The site connects the commitment and resources of private companies with the needs of Zaragoza society in order to face this emergency situation. Five work areas have been set up in which the different companies can lend their help: health, education, entertainment, technology and food. Read more (in Spanish) here.
Contact: Lorena Calvo
Dusseldorf is turning to the internet and telephone to education, sport and support. A new hotline for the elderly and other high risk populations is available for getting help and advice. Read more (in German) here. A new e-learning platform provided by the city allows teachers to provide their pupils with learning material and online classes. Read more (in German) here. And the municipal department of sport, which usually offers free outdoor classes in Dusseldorf’s parks, has launched online workouts that people can enjoy from home. Read more (in German) here.
Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld
The librarians of the Tallinn Central Library are reading books via Skype or phone for children who have to stay at home because of the COVID-19 crisis. A child only needs to choose a book from the library list and call the librarian, who will then read the book for him/her. One session lasts maximum 30 minutes.
The library, which has already had a large stock of e-books available since it opened eight years ago, is also now uploading tonnes more e-books to keep people engaged during the coronavirus, and is providing free online registration for those Estonian citizens who are not yet readers in order to grant access to e-library ELLU.
Read more here.
Contact: Kerttu Märtin
Leipzig’s natural history museum is creating videos for children to replace its exhibition on the deep sea, which was supposed to open at the end of March. A carpet of rubbish swirling above a shipwreck, the installation, and subsequently the videos that the museum is creation, will explore areas such as evolutionary history, biodiversity and environmental protection, until the museum can be opened again. Read more (in German) here.
Contact: Christin Rettke
’10 ways to run your business operations remotely’ – the city of Tallinn gives advice for companies under the restrictions of the corona crisis. Estonia has already digitalised many public services. It is also leading in digital education and offers its tools for free to support other countries. Read more here
Contact: Kerttu Märtin
Motivating kids to move at home – that’s the idea of ‘Fit with Clips for Kids’, a series of short video clips inviting for jumping and skill games and other movement ideas which easily can be done at home. You can read more here (in German) and find the video clips here.
Contact: Claudia Schulcz
To ensure continued access to books, music and films, as well as educational material to people who are staying at home, the municipal and state library in Dortmund are now providing online media for everyone – even those who do not yet have a library card. Read more here.
Contact: Felicia Schenkelberg
A simple explanation of the coronavirus and how to protect yourself and others – the city of Vienna has produced an animated video especially for kids. It’s in German, you can use YouTube’s settings to get subtitles in other languages.
Contact: Michaela Kauer or stay up to date at @Stadt_Wien
With all municipal kindergatens still running, despite schools being closed, the Tallinn City Government has used emergency measures to enact changes in the organisation of kndergartens, giving more parents an opportunity to continue working.
Read more here
Contact: Kerttu Märtin
