Imagining our Europe – Short Stories for Sharing Perspectives Erasmus Project

Project Title

Imagining our Europe – Short Stories for Sharing Perspectives

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The project “Imagining our Europe – Short Stories for Sharing Perspectives” has been developed on the basis of the need to actively and deliberately work against estrangement and on a culture of communication and mutual understanding in order to turn any type of “otherness” into an experience that ultimately enriches our students’ lives, rather than posing a threat to them. This project gives students and teachers an opportunity to work on and contribute to cultivating an environment of peaceful communication and interaction even or – especially – within a context of differing attitudes, values and emotionally charged topics which will help the participants to get a better understanding of their own and each other’s attitudes and believes about the EU.

The core objective of the project is to promote and encourage the dialogue between our students by triggering awareness and peaceful negotiation processes of what it means to be European citizens. Students will be encouraged to express their views, thoughts and feelings on topics concerning the EU by producing fictional texts (short stories) dealing with issues concerning the European election, Brexit, working life, school life, sport events or the environment etc. and putting them together in form of an anthology.

Our partnership consists of five secondary level schools, from five EU countries – Spain, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania and Finland. Four students and two teachers from each school will participate in every project meeting. The student group is very heterogenous in age, cultural and socio-economic background. For the aim of this project, which is creating creative texts expressing and valuing a multitude of perspectives, having groups with a high level of diversity might be a particularly enriching factor. Our research and experience from previous projects has highlighted the necessity of projects that allow the expression of the students’ personal views and emotions in order to value and embrace cultural diversity as a responsible EU citizen.

The project consists of five core activities. During the last activity students will discuss difficult questions like “What does Europe mean?” or “Why is it important?” on the basis of a collection of short stories which they will have planned, written, revised and published in the meetings before. Each visit marks a corner stone in the creative writing process. An integral part of support will be the eTwinning tool which is used as the main platform on which the students will publish their final product, the collection of short stories, but also a tool to stay in contact in between the visits and as a device for project progress monitoring. The creative approach needed in producing an anthology which will be published on the digital platform eTwinning will also help in attaining good basic skills in literacy, foreign language learning and ICT.

It is expected that the impact and long-term effect of this project will go beyond the students and teachers directly involved in the project, and will affect our entire school communities and local communities. In creating and discussing an anthology, all participants will have to learn to work together, overcome obstacles, such as language barriers and learn communication and cooperation skills. We feel that the project will help students in gaining an element of intercultural awareness and tolerance that we cannot provide in the classroom alone. Staying in host families and visiting other European schools will enhance this. Participants will be exposed to other European communities, cultures and languages in a way that they will never forget. They will experience school life in another European country in a very authentic and tangible way.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 159886 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erich-Gutenberg-Berufskolleg Köln & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Enseignement Secondaire Diocésain de Saint-Remacle, Liege ASBL
• Pyörön koulu
• Marijampoles marijonu gimnazija
• IES Santo Tomás de Aquino