BECOMING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS. Social entrepreneurship to activate the beating of our schools and our towns. Erasmus Project

Project Title

BECOMING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS. Social entrepreneurship to activate the beating of our schools and our towns.

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: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Health and wellbeing; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

The project “Becoming social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship to activate the beating of our schools and our towns” was a strategic partnership that started in September 2017 and finished i n August 2019. The project was mutually developed by partner organisations from Austria, Greece, Poland and Spain. The idea of the project was to exchange and enrich our students’ ideas about their schools and towns needs.
We created four different projects as every country had its own need(s), then, during the mobilities all the countries l earnt about the j ob done i n each country i n order to copy or modify their partner’s project to be included in their school’s curriculum.
The Spanish project was to included in the curriculum the creation of an animation group with i ts music band parade and stilts. Students taught to their partners how to build the stilts, their trousers, how to walk on them, and how to play a specific Catalan instrument called “gralla”. Our partners, built their own stilts in the different countries with the help of the information gathered during the Spanish mobility.
The Greek project consisted in promoting sport tourism as one of the main possible working opportunities of Crete society. During the mobility, Cretan students shared their work: how to create a webpage, how to make olive oil soap and how to track a
trail into a beautiful landscape that can be done by tourists. Again, in the other countries we created a webpage of the project with the Greek information, we did the workshop of making olive oil soaps and we tracked a trail. In Spain, for instance, we tracked a trail done as a family and school venue being an evening walk around the village.
The Polish project consisted in rebuilding and creating new cycling lanes of the town to promote healthy lifestyle. Polish students also learnt about making a homemade energy drink for doing sport and during the mobility, all countries learnt about the
cycling lanes and the creation of this energy drink. Once more, all the four countries developed a similar project in their own countries regarding the government l aws on cycling and nature, something that our students also learnt.
The Austrian project lied in creating an elderly care home visitation program included in the curriculum. Also during the mobilities all countries were taught about how did they do it and then the different countries developed charity programmes in their own
countries copying the same i dea or changing i t. In some countries l ike Greece and Poland they decided to create a charity fair with homemade products and they gave the money to charity projects. The Austrian and Spanish team decided to i nvolve
students in spending their free time doing some activities such as visiting the elderly care home in Austria or, in Spain, going to primary school to help students to read, going to the kindergarten to prepare some games for toddlers, etc. Our students learnt that they can invest money on charity as well as investing their free time.
The aim of the project was developing the youth worker’s competences for empowerment of youth through entrepreneurship education and social i nclusion of the school within each towns/schools’ needs.
During the first year of the project, every country developed their own project and during the mobilities, students of the hosting country taught their peers about the activities of their project. In the second year, each school developed the three other
projects l earnt, working i n different groups with cooperative work and teaching their mates about what they carried out.
While preparing the project, students developed skills needed in future entrepreneurship and employment i ke creativity, flexibility team work,managements of time, planning and organizing, coping with stress ,self-presentation and commercial awareness.. They became more aware of using English as an international communication tool and that’s what they specifically discovered during mobilities while l iving with hosting families. They also i mproved ICT skills and developed self-confidence. The project fulfilled the objectives of the programme
“Europe 2020” which aims to deal with i nnovation, education, social i nclusion and the reduction of unemployment.
Teachers improved their work using interactive methodologies, problem-based learning and shared teaching among foreign colleagues done by different meetings,
Skypes as well as the job-shadowing done in each country during the mobilities.
Teachers were integrated among teachers from both their schools and partners schools so that the project had a truly transversal and i ntegrating approach in the curriculum.
The project reached to all the target groups expected: students -not only the participants but also all the students in each school- the teachers, the students’ families and local communities. The project was innovative as i t worked on social entrepreneurship and our students learnt how to be useful to their schools as well as to their towns by means of the ideas they had.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 63280 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Escola Sant Jordi & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Trito Gymnasio Chanion (3rd Junior High School of Chania)
• Szkola Podstawowa im. Janusza Korczaka w Jozefoslawiu
• Bilingual Junior High School, Wiener Neustadt