Sustainable Flower Farming and Modern Farmers of the Future Erasmus Project

Project Title

Sustainable Flower Farming and Modern Farmers of the Future

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

The Strategic Partnership “Sustainable Flower Farming and Modern Farmers of the Future” has brought together public schools and private vocational training centers from four European countries (Turkey,Germany, Italy, Bulgaria) in order to examine the various national school-to-work transition (on flower farming) settings in the participating countries and their specific vocational learning approaches. Training of vocational school students on how to adapt Sustainable Flower Farming to the education project was a development of innovation project through partnership among different organizations as Fatma Aliye Vocational and Technical High School (Turkey), Professional School of Agriculture “Nikola Pushkarov” (Bulgaria), IISS “Caramia-Gigante”, Locorotondo (Italy) and DEULA (Germany). All these organizations were/are well established and experienced bodies on flower farming issue and school education.The Erasmus+ project was set up to exchange expertise on vocational-based learning and training, and of course to highlight examples of good practice.ObjectivesThe overall objective of the project was:- to train the students on education about the sustainable flower farming-to improve the VET within the field of sustainable farming with the goal to strengthen the skills of the affected students and give them trainngs that increase theirvocational/professional development-to produce a booklet with good examples on sustainable flowers of the partner countries. As metodology, the project supposed the sharing of knowledge and competences between students and also teachers belonging to different schools and institutions.In the 15 months of its working time the project managed to complete all the tasks, activities and products the partner consortium agreed on in the early stage of application and submission. The activities started with an extensive Kick-off meeting that took place in Turkey. Following, 4 LTT Activities were carried out. In these LTT activities 45 students and 9 teachers took place and experienced the good practies of the host countries. After each LTT Activity a questionnaire applied to the participants. The activities wereaccompanied by 3 transnational project meetings where the expertise and ideas were exchanged, the observation of work plan and time schedule monitored as well as the next tasks and respoinsiblities agreed. Finaly a booklet that contains the sustainable flower of the partner countries has been created. In order to strengthen the VET, the “Sustainable Flower Farming” project has produced a booklet with good examples on how to work with sustainable flowers/farming, which is available online and free for anyone to use. The sustainable Flower Booklet is this project’s one of the main result. The booklet can be found online at https://mezitli.meb.gov.tr/. In this way the results are available for everybody interested in using the material produced within the project. The main impact of SustainableFlower Project is that the professionals (companion teachers) working in thefield have gotten new tools and training materials in order to support their students at school to make sustainable choices/decisions.As it has already known the specific context of the project was the agricultural sector. It is obvious tah this is one of the most internationally oriented sector and that is one ofthe reason why international mobility should be encouraged in a better way in this sector. However, we can only speak from a success when we really manage to validate,recognize and transfer these learning outcomes which are gained in a context abroad. The involvement of students and staff was helped by different online tools as a websiteand a Instagram/Whatsapp page where students and staff could exchange their feedbacks on the project and their proposals. This network among students and staff also gavethem the chance to improve their knowledge of English and to exchange information about job opportunities in Europe in the future. All the partners were involved in every stepof the project. However, their role differed, depending the nature of the organisation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 72978 Eur

Project Coordinator

National Education Directorate of Mezitli Province in Mersin & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Professional School of Agriculture “Nikola Pushkarov”
• DEULA-Nienburg GmbH
• Fatma Aliye Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi
• IISS “Caramia – Gigante”, Locorotondo