Towards empowerment and sustainability of young people Erasmus Project

Project Title

Towards empowerment and sustainability of young people

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: Creativity and culture; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The project “Towards empowerment and sustainability of young people “ is a transnational project focused on Tourism and entrepreneurship for students in 3 public schools of secondary education in Iceland ( Menntaskólinn á Tröllaskaga in Ólafsfjörður) , Italy ( IIES Patini Liberatore in Castel di Sangro) and Spain (IES Tías in Lanzarote).
The main aim of the project was to discover ways of empowerment of young people and find ways of sustainability for them for the future. Around 75 students were be involved in the project and 10 teachers were involved from three different schools, the students from age 15-18. The school systems of the participating schools are very different and go from very flexible in Iceland to rigid in Italy and Spain, placed in very different cultural context in Europe with very different values and traditions. Their possibilities are influenced by the isolated and rural environment they live in, struggling finding ways of sustaining themselves, specially in Italy and Spain where young people are facing a future with high rates of unemployment. In the project disabled students will participate on equal level with other students.
The main focus of the project was to pull forward the strengths and skills in the three different student groups, making an advantage of the characteristics of the school systems as well as the natural environments and the society where they live. During the entire project various types of activities related to ecological tourism, arts, sports and outdoor activities implementing ICT were developed and carried out by the participants. The methods and goals of the project were focused on the priorities of the European Commission in Education such as “Enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training” and ” Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training” . Another important goal that was reached was that of being inclusive, by that is meant that students with special needs and or emotional, social and economical disadvantages participated in the project. By participating in the project the were empowered as individuals and came out as enthusiastic and willing to participate in more projects.
During the project the participants communicated on Social media ( Facebook, Whatsapp and other). They engaged, shared and builded knowledge and collaborated to build sustainable ideas for how to build a future for young people. By coming together during the mobilities, staying in host families, learning in different environments and carrying out different engaging and challenging activities the participants learned to estimate the importance of sharing and collaborating, they learned to adjust to different points of view of cultural en individual type. They shared experiences and ideas and learned to listen to each other and evaluate without being offended and understanding that they could actually learn from other fellow students.
Through the project a range of various business proposals with sustainable activities and ideas was developed and at the end each in each school they selected one idea to develop. The participants acquired acknowledge in how to investigate supply and demand on the market, needs and possibilities and came up ideas of new jobs by creating activities for their own environments. They learned working while applying creativity and innovation. At the same time they went through an active learning process of being entrepreneurs. They also learned to see how they could learn from others. Another important goal was that through staying with host families it opened their eyes and ears to the fact that they were very much similar to their hosts, that many things were alike and yet a lot other were different. It became no so big a barrier as they thought in the beginning. The same happened to the host families themselves, they are much eager to open up their homes to students from other countries.
The project motivated the participants to get involved and participate in new projects. The experience added an important value to their understanding of “the others” . It made them proud of themselves and empowered them, they saw their surroundings in a different light and will hopefully commit them to further education and nurtured the possibilities to create jobs and being self-sufficient. The dissimmination a of the project and its results will hopefully inspire others in the local communities to create projects and participate themselves.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 96555 Eur

Project Coordinator

Menntaskólinn á Tröllaskaga & Country: IS

Project Partners

• IES TÍAS
• Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore Patini Liberatore