Empowering the development of a sustainable society Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowering the development of a sustainable society

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The two schools, Sint-Aloysiuscollege Menen and Ringsaker Upper Secondary School, share two main priorities: international cooperation and raising awareness on sustainable development. In this project we can meet both these goals. We have seen in both schools that even though sustainable development is something most students are aware of, they tend not to be too concerned about it. It seems like they need to reflect more over their own actions and how all the people in the world can make a difference on an individual level.

Sint-Aloysiuscollege Menen is a secondary school offering general studies to 800 students aged between 12 and 18 years old and 90 staff members. The school is situated in Menen, a city with a lot of families with an immigrant background and with more families than average (in Belgium) living in deprivation.
Ringsaker Upper Secondary School is situated in Innlandet county and offers general studies and various vocational studies: Building and construction, Electricity and electronics, Health and social care, Service and logistics, Technical and industrial production. Hence, it is a quite large school with approximately 750 students and 150 employees. Innlandet county is traditionally a farming county, and the level of education has historically been low. This is now improving and we have more students taking a higher education, but we still feel the need to enlighten our students of the possibilities they have worldwide. Doing international projects is a way to achieve this enlightment.

The main topic for our project is sustainable development and we will both work on the students’ awareness of these issues and also prepare them for future work in gaining a more sustainable approach both on a personal and professional level. We will perform activities during the project weeks in which we will offer a range of workshops that not only increase the global awareness of the students but let them experience the possible dangers and consequences of some major global challenges (e.g. poverty, climate change, refugee crisis). Our main objective is to make the students feel the consequences of global challenges through different simulation activities (e.g. roleplays.). We believe that they learn more if they have to live the various situations many people face due to global challenges by putting themselves in their places. Through these activities, we think the students will become more committed to doing their part for a sustainable development.

The results expected from this project are a greater awareness on the topic, not just among the participating students, but their fellow students and our local communities as a whole. We will measure this by giving both the participating students and their fellow students from the same years a survey prior to the project start, and a follow up survey at the very end of the project. We expect to see a greater awareness of these issues among the students in the final survey. We also expect this project to have an impact on the behaviour not only on the participating students, but also the two schools and their local communities.

The potential longer term benefits from this project are that the students have a greater understanding of themselves being European citizens and that we all have to cooperate in order to do something to ensure a sustainable development of the world. Our main means of dissemination of the project are through the schools’ web sites and Facebook sites and the local media. We will also publish a link to our eTwinnig space on our web sites. Moreover we will promote this project in regional educational meetings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65120 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ringsaker videregående skole & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Sint-Aloysiuscollege Menen