Images of young people in the future Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Images of young people in the future Europe

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Our multinational project “Images of young people in the future Europe” was supposed to meet today’s growing demand of having better educated people and the basic need of lifelong learning.
During their project work students were enabled to identify their personal potential by reflecting on their own identity in order to develop the key competences such as social integration, active citizenship, language competence, ICT-competence as well as the learning competence “learn to learn”. These objectives were realised in the course of two years by focusing on different topics during the meetings in the participating schools in Szczecin/PL, Orange/F, Tampere/FL, Neustrelitz/G, Ventspils/LV and Cuneo/IT. The following fields had priority: identity, tolerance, creativity, effectiveness through mobility, success through innovation and sense for democracy.

First, starting from reflecting on their own identity and their personal potential, students in multinational teams worked out what requirements a young person of today’s Europe has to face. On that point, a draft of a portfolio was started which was then complemented in the next steps.

After that we started a logo competition and agreed on the logo of the project at the next meeting on tolerance. There students also tried to find out what unites adolescents and thus developed understanding and acceptance for others, especially minorities. This was reached through practical exercises in workshops, a lecture and the experience of intolerance by visiting Camp des Milles, a Second-World-War deportation camp. A questionnaire that had been worked out by the French students was answered by all participating nationalities.

Students’ creativity next to the development of other competences played an important role for the next meeting. Focusing on “music and arts unite”, multinational groups were formed to perform a musical showing young people’s community spirit and demonstrating the efforts for a joint Europe to an international audience. After preparation in national groups, the project song, a rap, was written, performed and recorded, which then became a symbol of identification with this project and its contents.

In the 4th phase (effectiveness through mobility) adolescents reported on their own visions of their future and discussed similarities and differences. Furthermore, possible ways and options of how they can complete and continue their education in their own country and abroad were presented. By doing so, they compiled a list of requirements of the single countries and Europe to focus on long term needed professions. Here language competence and ICT played an important role. As a result, a brochure was made which may be a helpful tool also for other students in this process of transition from school to the world of study and work.

For the 5th step (success through innovation) the young people tried to define what characterizes this field, how they can develop particular strengths and how they can tap their own full potential. Using the example of a young enterprise of large commercial presence and an intense workshop they learned that self-initiative, creativity and innovation are important keys to success. By creating e-posters on “Requirements for a young successful entrepreneur” they drew conclusions for their own development.

In the last step, all aspects were brought together again under the subject “sense for democracy”. The portfolio from the 1st step with all its additions was taken up again and checked anew with regard to the core themes of the project.
At the end of the project the students were encouraged to rethink their views and the requirements which young people face nowadays based on newly gained knowledge. Thus they created an image of a role model of a young European person, which may be helpful for other adolescents.

All parts of the project consisted of 3 phases: preparation of the single themes in national groups (all participating students) using ICT to exchange information, project meetings (six students from each nation working together in multinational groups) and the reworking (the participating students working as multipliers in their national groups). During the whole project, a film team, set up by students, documented the activities and the progress of the project.

Next to all these results, which had been planned and put into practise, students started a website to publish and share all these experiences and results. Moreover, they created a brochure folder showing the process and results of the whole project. Apart from this, they wrote a term paper in which they examined project-related topics in the different participating countries and presented their findings to other students of the school.
Last but not least they reflected on their multifaceted positive experiences gained in the course of the project to be published in the CarolinumZeitschrift.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 223875 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnasium Carolinum & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Hatanpään lukio
• LYCEE DE L’ARC ORANGE
• Liceo Peano-Pellico
• Ventspils 4.vidusskola
• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Marii Sklodowskiej – Curie w Szczecinie