The Goodwill Ambassadors – Let’s do good together! ‘Towards empowered lives and resilient nations’ Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Goodwill Ambassadors – Let’s do good together!
‘Towards empowered lives and resilient nations’

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: Social dialogue; Inclusion – equity; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

“Happiness is not a Destination, it is a Way of Life.”

When starting a new project in general, it is essential to acknowledge and question the reasons, needs and intended goals of the new Project. So it was with our Project “Goodwill Ambassadors – Let’s Do Good Together”. Our Project started off with questions such as: Do we want to make a difference? Can we make a difference? How can we make a difference? What will be the added value of our Project?

In This Summary we aim to make our intensions clear: We are here to make a difference and we believe we can do it!

When planning this Project with our respective Partners, we did some background reseach at our schools and came to a conclusion: a number of our pupils are selfcentered and not very kind to each other. Some lack the ability to notice the good around them and the heart to be grateful for what they have. Pupils also seem to have little or no experience in doing good deeds or taking part in volunteer work. We decided to tackle this grievance and try to change the focus from the pupils themselves to others. In doing this we believe our pupils can gain some lifelong skills that will improve their futures as humans, friends, partners, parents, employees and fellow EU-citizens.

Our Project reaches for strenghtening social dialogue in schools and daily surroundings. Strong social dialogue will enhance inclusion and equity and finally influence the participants wellbeing. This Project will promote engaging, connecting and empowering youth in their communities. Our Project aims to increase pupils happiness through the methods of Positive Education, based on Positive Psychology. Five specific areas of Positive Education will be studied by students: “Caring, Compassion, Positivity, Gratitude and Happiness”

We are 5 countries involved: Finland, France, Spain, Italy and Cuprys. We are Secondary Schools and our Pupils are aged between 13-16 years. From each country we have 2-4 teachers and some 20 pupils involved. The pupils travel to the Partner Countries with a Group of 6 pupils and 2-4 teachers at a time. The pupils joining the Program will be selected carefully. The main criteria is the level of their engagement to the Project and also their willingness to participate in the Goodwill – part of the Program. We are interested in how eager they are to grow in their humanity. The Erasmus pupils will be named “Goodwill Ambassadors”.

In our project we use the UN Sustainable Development Goals as the framework through which each Partner School chooses their perspective of doing good. We chose the UN Goals as we think they are very current topics worldwide and they give a concrete view to our Project.

Our project is based on one common UN Goal between the Partner Schools: the Goal nr 3 “Good Health and Wellbeing”. We believe this Goal is the priority number one: we want our pupils to grow happy, healthy, strong and caring adults who know the meaning of compassion and helping others. We put emphasis on the ‘Mental’ Health and Wellbeing. This goal is implemented by the Goodwill Ambassadors.

Each Partner School will also work with an additional UN Goal:

Finland: “Quality Education”
France: “Gender Equality”
Spain: “Climate Action”
Cyprus: “No Poverty”
Italy: “Affordable and Clean Energy”

All the activities combined with the chosen Goals will improve pupils social and citizenship skills, cultural awareness and also deepen their comprehension of EU and the state of our beloved Globe.

In our Project we will have the main focus on the Goodwill Ambassadors: the Erasmus-pupils who will spread good deeds, starting from themselves and reaching out to their wider everyday life surroundings. In doing these pre-planned GWA acitivities, the pupils will learn about compassion and gratitude, gain happiness in their lives and grow wider perspective to life and to what it has to offer. We strongly believe that with this Project our pupils will grow in their undestanding and respect towards people around them and also those in need. The pupils will also develop self-compassion and learn useful tools of Positive Education to improve their life skills. As a result of the Project the pupils awareness of our EU-Neighbours and our Globe will grow. The Project will give our pupils a chance to improve their communication, leadership and English language skills – all which are to be considered the types of skills that are needed for lifelong learning. What comes to the long term learning skills: in the expected results of the project, we emphasize on such life skills that may not be measurable traditionally. They are for example improvement in pupils school motivation, happiness, willingness to help others and noticing the good around them: skills that are at the top of the list of skills we are eager to see our pupils to have gained from the Project.

The Project hopes to prove the pupils that happiness is the way of life and a bridge towards Empowered lives and resilient

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 164846 Eur

Project Coordinator

Tiistilän koulu & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria Heliche
• Collège Le Grand Champ
• IISS F.sco D’Aguirre-Dante Alighieri
• Gymnasio Stavrou