Students Reaching Out Erasmus Project

Project Title

Students Reaching Out

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Students Reaching Out

In the three years our project was running our main objective was to raise students’ awareness of the importance to reach out to others who are in need. Schools have an obligation to encourage this. So we started our project with a teachers training about how to implement Voluntary Non-profit Work Placement in the school’s curriculum. We developed a roadmap for implementation for schools and the participating schools have used the roadmap to start Voluntary work projects.

During the two teacher’s trainings we had, teachers were also educated in eLearning, innovative tools, eTwinning and filmmaking, using all kinds of digital programs and apps. We designed several digital lessons, which we are using now in the Internationalisation lessons and in other subjects. So eLearning has improved in our schools and other teachers are motivated too to develop digital lessons.

Schools of six countries (Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Spain, France and the Netherlands) worked together on this project, all secondary schools with students between 14 and 16 years old. All together there were nine students’ exchanges, in which always four schools participated with eight students and two teachers. Each school took part in a student’s exchange twice a year, either being a host or a guest.

Before, during and after an exchange there were activities concerning voluntary work, NGO’s
and fundraising. During the exchanges students were taking part in Voluntary work in a variety of places: Old people’s homes, Children’s playschool, Animal farms, Nature reserves, Charity shops, Foodbank, etc. We were working together with local, national and international NGO’s during the students’ exchanges. We visited several NGO’s and NGO’s came to the schools to give lectures about their work. Students also organised and took part in fundraising activities and collected a lot of money. The cheques were handed over to the representative of the NGO, during the exchanges. During the second year the hosting school chose a national NGO where we raised money for with fundraising activities. In the third year all the students together chose Unicef as the NGO we collected money for that year. Students also presented the outcomes of questionnaires (Young people and NGO’s, National Social Security System) to learn more about the differences between the six countries, concerning social security and voluntary work. To learn about the different school systems they also attended some lessons. In each country cultural sites were visited too. Because communication was in English, students had a lot of possibilities to practise and their English definitely has improved.

Our ultimate goal to found a new NGO, run by EU students in all participating countries, encouraging solidarity and entrepreneurship, was unfortunately not achieved. It seemed that in some countries schools are not allowed to take part in a NGO, due to all kind of legal regulations. We regret this a lot.

All activities were communicated via Facebook and studentsreachingout.blogspot.com.es. Students uploaded their pictures and videos of activities. Updates of the project were published on each school’s website and the local media were tuned in every time when there was an activity. There were many contacts with local media, local authorities and local organizations which resulted in an increase of the school’s support in the community. Also because of this, a lot of people got to know our project and Erasmus+ projects in general.

We had three Transnational Project Meetings for coördinators for planning and organization, exchanging ideas about the ongoing project, solving difficulties, organizing the teachers training sessions, preparing and evaluating the students’ exchanges. During the last one we were evaluating the project and writing the final report together.

Long- term, all participating schools will continue with voluntary work projects. Our roadmap for implementation still will be published on the schools’ websites for inspiration. Schools will continue to organise fundraising activities and the outcome of these will be on our Facebook page and our BlogSpot. (http://studentsreachingout.blogspot.com) Teachers who took part in our training sessions about eLearning and other ICT skills will give workshops to their colleagues to improve their ICT-skills.

During these three years we have seen a lot of enthusiastic students who were reaching out to people and nature in need. They didn’t only do this because they had to, but because they realised that one day they might need help too and they discovered that helping someone gives you a good feeling.
We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 246829 Eur

Project Coordinator

Emelwerda College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Annerstaskolan
• Staatliche Wirtschaftsschule Neuburg a. d. Donau
• IES MAIMONIDES
• OZEL DARUSSAFAKA ORTAOKULU
• Collège Léonard de Vinci