Establishing a European Dream – from a monetary union towards a set of unifying values Erasmus Project

Project Title

Establishing a European Dream – from a monetary union towards a set of unifying values

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Creativity and culture; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Starting point for this project was the fact that a lot of young people struggle to see themselves as Europeans and therefore identify themselves only with their nation and/or region and not so much with Europe.
An examination and discussion of European morals, similar to that of an American Dream, is needed in order to find and share commonalities and in order to develop visions for the future.
Despite the fundamental idea, that regional and national identities are worth protecting, a lot of students have difficulties to envision a common Europe.
Common values, fundamental principles and visions are often overlooked and not discussed nor shaped.
The loss of common basic principles can be seen in the rise of national thought in some of the European countries. Especially in politics it can be observed that voters often follow anti-European argumentation.
The participating students from the partner schools Germany, Turkey, Poland and Lithuania were between the age of 15 and 21 and full-time students of either schools of general education or vocational schools. The students dealt thoroughly with the system of values of the EU. The students examined historical and cultural commonalities in order to formulate how young Europeans understand Europe and what they expect from it.
During the first mobility in Poland, the students from the different countries compared their own Dreamboards in respect to their understanding and visions of Europe. Subsequently the students created one common Dreamboard.
During the second mobility in Turkey, the students compared existing charters, in order to formulate one common charter, which was originally planned to be handed over to the European Parliament – due to the Corona restrictions, this was cancelled.
During the third mobility in Lithuania a common European dream based on the charta already created during the last mobility was central. All countries prepared a stage performance including a script and performed it at the beginning of the mobility in Lithuania. Through these stage performances that focused on different social groups and social problems, a common European dream was created and verbalised and then held against society problems in order to test whether the dream is valid and can be reached by all social groups and minorities.
During the forth mobility in Germany the students were offered workshops that worked with the text of the European anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ – the original text and an own country-specific interpretations. Workshops included the anthem in a creative approach. There were workshops held by artists that let the students draw a collage of paintings, a workshop that aimed on a photo series of flags, anthem and the dream as well as a workshop where the students rewrote their anthem and produced it as a music video.
Due to Corona travel restrictions the Turkish group wasn’t able to come to Germany and couldn’t participate. We partly integrated them with a video conference.

The project was planned to ends with the handover of the charter as well as the music video to the European Parliament in the scope of the ambassador schools for the European Parliament – this was cancelled due to Corona restrictions.
A long term benefit from the project exists in so far, as it takes up the topic of a missing community of values in Europe and deals with this topic in order to work against this deficit and raise the awareness for it.

Project Website

http://www.erasmuseuropeandream.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 108965 Eur

Project Coordinator

Berufsbildende Schulen Soltau & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Kauno Varpo gimnazija
• Zespol Szkol Zawodowych im. Marii Sklodowskiej-Curie w Olesnicy
• Zonguldak Kozlu Anadolu Lisesi