Dare to take action Erasmus Project

Project Title

Dare to take action

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

When we planned our project, we had in mind Eurostat data concerning the age at which pupils finish their education and the early school leaving of the 18-24 year-old population. We found that, with the exception of Croatia, Poland and Greece, the other countries far exceeded the recommended maximum, being Spain the “sad champion” in this classification.
This alone justified the approach of our project. We also took into consideration the need to influence the motivation of the student and his or her degree of involvement. To do so, it is essential to place them in real teaching and learning contexts.
And with this premise we started our journey in this project “Dare to an Entrepreneur”: to give a practical value to everything learned, to improve the possibilities of finding a job or to promote self-employment by creating our own company.
Always from a practical starting point, our project has sought from the beginning a practical, real and collaborative experience between the partners. Each of the countries involved has looked for, detected and selected a business idea, all with the aim of developing a business project, from the setting-up of the company to the production of a specific good or service typical of its environment or context (culture, history, customs…), with a high potential for development and with the idea of applying an added value that would improve it (recycled or environmentally friendly materials, efficient use of resources, sustainable packaging…). Greece created a food company, Croatia a plastic recycling company, Portugal a marketing company for products from the region, Spain a company of handmade soaps… Each partner did a market study and checked the needs of its environment and the possibilities of success. Our objective has been to promote our product as such and as a result of its own context and environment, promoting tourism in the region where it was located, interrelating product and place of origin in an intrinsic and consequent way.
Not only have we created the company in a logical and consequent way, but we have also taken care of the other essential sections to reach success: marketing standards, legislation, production costs, promotion, advertising…
And all this putting as a coda an International Fair, in Spain, that has allowed to give visibility to all our work and has given to know Erasmus+ in general and our project in particular in our near and not so near environment.
The target group has been students between 15 and 19 years old, an age in which their level and educational interests are close to the proposed objectives and the line of work of the project. Between 10 and 15 students per country have participated in the mobilities, but the number of students in each place has been much higher than the number of students who have collaborated in the whole process.
Our objective has been based on the three pillars of eTwinning: interaction, collaboration and communication. eTwinning and Twinspace have been basic to get our students to collaborate, interact and produce together; Google Classroom, Drive, Zoom, Flock… have also been essential tools.
And we have not forgotten the evaluation. Thanks to the rubrics and forms created and filled in ad hoc, we have been able to confirm that our project has been a success.
The spreading, in the press or on the radio or in meetings with parents…, has also given us a clear answer as to what our impact has been.
But the most important thing is that our students, those directly or indirectly involved, motivated and interested, no longer have the business world unaware of them. Their vision has changed and they are able to face these challenges with sufficient knowledge and guarantee of success.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 119620 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES MELCHOR DE MACANAZ & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Gymnasio Armeniou
• I.I.S.”VESPUCCI-COLOMBO”
• Agrupamento de Escolas de José Relvas Alpiarça
• LXXVIII LO im. Marii Pawlikowskiej-Jasnorzewskiej w Warszawie
• Gospodarska skola Varazdin