NAUČME SA POMÁHAŤ Erasmus Project

Project Title

NAUČME SA POMÁHAŤ

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition, transparency, certification; Inclusion – equity; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Project “LET US LEARN TO HELP” was built on two pillars: an INCLUSION and its ACHIEVEMENT by USE of PRESENCE of ANIMALS at all partner schools. Our experience was that the presence of animals helped to improve physical as well as psychological state of humans. Canistherapy was practised at the veterinary school in the Czech Republic, apitherapy was provided at vocational school in Slovakia and the school in France practiced hipotherapy.There has been an increased interest in people with physical or mental disability in the last decades, which was linked with the effort to improve the physical state and life of people with special needs. Positive effect of animals on the quality of human life is indisputable. We considered inclusion, which was the main pillar of our project, a process related to identification and removal of barriers and an effort to achieve success and happiness of all the children. Professional word for the positive influence of animals on humans is an animal assisted therapy – ANIMOTHERAPY. It reaches into healthcare, social care and education. Animals can be companions in various stages of human life, they can be of help to individuals with issues, they can stimulate for better results and they can heal.Our students worked with animals on daily basis and it made them empathetic, independent, perseverant as well as better and humbler. The skills gained during learning through experience of working with animals led to increased ability of students to help the weaker, ill and disadvantaged. Relationship with animals knows no borders, national differences nor generation gaps. And it was the animals that drew together the partners in this project as well. Our schools provide education for students of various special education needs together with intact students. It was in the interest of each school to provide an education, qualification and practical skills, which would guarantee their employability and satisfaction with the work they do. Individual schools acted as guarantees of certain area of positive animal influence (apitherapy, hipotherapy, canistherapy) and their skills and experience were communicated mutually within the exchange of best practices. The TARGET GROUPS were our teachers, intact students and special needs students, who were an object as well as a subject of project main effort. The children as well as young people with special needs from close vicinity, their parents and lonely people benefited from being involved in the project activities. The project consisted of activities aimed at:1. the TEACHERS – short-term training events for the employees – each school, as a guarantee of one kind of animotherapy, provided the other partners with maximum knowledge and educational resources to enable the partners to teach and used the particular kind of animotherapy in question. 2. the STUDENTS and TEACHERS –blended mobility of students – each school ran one activity for students and teachers from partners‘ schools with the aim to test and amend the educational materials and necessary methods to gain certificates. 3. the students and teachers – within BLENDED MOBILITIES of students in VET– with the aim to verify the skills of students during the work with the children from nursery and primary schools and special needs‘ children, handicapped people and elderly lonely people. The results of the project included vocational preparation of pedagogic team and mutual exchange of best practices with the partners of the project, which took place through educating our students. Students’ satisfaction and success represented the feedback at the same time. The success of this project is connected to the results reached; however, we consider it to go well beyond the testing of educational materials and methods. From the long-term perspective we consider the main OUTCOME of the project the incentive for complex change of mindset and approach of individuals towards the disadvantaged the students with learning disability and the students from socially deprived homes. Animals do not consider their differentness as disturbing and this is something we have learnt from them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 127995,02 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stredna odborna skola & Country: SK

Project Partners

• Tauferova stredni odborna skola veterinarni Kromeriz
• EPLEFPA LOT ET GARONNE