Entrepreneurial Journey – Reanimating Craftsmanship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Entrepreneurial Journey – Reanimating Craftsmanship

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: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

Context and background:
Technical Progress leads to the extinction of workmanship and mechanical skills. Because of the digitalization of our everyday life there is a growing desire for haptic work (e.g. “Burgenländischer Blaudruck” – a regional printing technique.) to compensate for too much brainwork. Old crafts and trades are becoming extinct but progress must not be denied – past and future must be combined.
The project should primarily be supported to …
… enable intercultural exchange of specific regional crafts and present it to an international public (manufacture and presentation of products among the project partners).
… motivate young people to acquire new skills and to learn to think and act in an entrepreneurial way – cultural heritage as impulse for future employment.
… combine old crafts and trades, entrepreneurship and digitalization and to create new possibilities for innovative mercantilism.
Our motivation for this project is to secure a European surplus on a personal, intercultural and entrepreneurial level.
Targets, results and benefits:
Aim of the project is to motivate students to deal with old and fading manual skills, to acquire their techniques and subsequently develop innovative new products and market them in an entrepreneurial sense.
The result should be a transfer of knowledge that secures the conservation of the cultural heritage “altes Handwerk” and delivers practical results in the form of newly thought manual products.
The long-term benefit will be corporate learning and the mediation of entrepreneurial spirit as well as the inclusion of people with special needs in economic life.
Due to the fact that the students of the Greek partner school and some of the Portuguese school are people with special needs (Asperger syndrome, ADHD, Down syndrome, learning disorders etc.) inclusion will be a major challenge in our project which has to be considered at all levels (organizational, with regard to contents, methodical, etc.).
The development of the skills of single students shall be supported; self-designed and handmade products will help to foster confidence in their own creative abilities.
The benefit will lie in the development of basic skills and key competences of the single student.
Intercultural exchange results in a row of specific products of certain regions. The long-term benefit focusses on the European idea, especially on the social and pedagogic values of the regional cultural heritage.
Experience shows that old crafts and trades are mainly performed by people with traditional attitudes and of higher age. The project aims to connect this generation with young people and their experiences. This confrontation on manual, sociocultural and diverse-age level results in mutual learning. Transfer of knowledge will be a central outcome of the project.
The benefit will be an intercultural and generation crossing education as well as life-long learning.
Sustainable learning through discrete organizing and independent acting is one of the major aims and will improve the quality of training institutions by using alternative methods of teaching (hands-on mentality), which can also be seen as a benefit.
In the course of our project entrepreneurship focusses on the acquisition of cultural, social, manual and entrepreneurial competences. In addition to the previously mentioned results the process of learning (the “Entrepreneurial Journey”) will be documented by each project team with a short film, the products will be presented on a trade market (2.0) accompanied by a summary product catalogue which will be published both in print and digital form.
In this way social and educational benefits will come to the fore.
The project is divided into the following activities:
C 1. Kick off, research, selection of project partners
C 2. Creation, design and prototype of a new product
C 3. Preparation of production and marketing of the manufactured products
C 4. Implementation of marketing materials
C 5. Market – concluding project presentation in form of a touring exhibition
The methodology used in the realization of the project will be based on “do-it-yourself” and “hands-on” to allow the involvement of practical and creative activities of the students at the best.
Participating schools:
Agrupamento de Escolas da Maia (Portugal), Enieo Eidiko Epaggelmatiko Gymnasio – Lykeio Katerinis
(Greece), Colegiul National Samuel von Brukenthal (Rumania), Grobinas gimnazija (Latvia), HBLA Oberwart (Austria)
These are higher schools providing general education and higher vocational schools.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 162523 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hoehere Bundeslehranstalt fuer wirtschaftliche Berufe, Tourismus, Mode und Bekleidungstechnik Oberwart & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Enieo Eidiko Epaggelmatiko Gymnasio – Lykeio Katerinis
• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DA MAIA
• Grobinas gimnazija
• Colegiul National Samuel von Brukenthal