Expanding the European Friendship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Expanding the European Friendship

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: Creativity and culture; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Coenecoop College, Waddinxveen would very much like to take the next step in the cooperation with IES Las Canteras, Madrid, Spain. This will be our third project that contains an exchange of students between the Netherlands and Spain. At this moment we expect that this would involve a group of around 50 third year students (aged fourteen+) from the bilingual group of both schools and two coordinators, as well as the engagement of colleagues, other students, administrative staff and parents.

Our objective is to broaden the horizon of our students and enrich their world-view by strengthening the relationships between these two schools. This would be supported by the development of cooperative skills used by the students during the project in a third language (English). The project would involve discovering the effects of cultural diversity, for example due to fluctuating migration of people throughout the ages, including the present day. The exchange programme would provide the students with actual first-hand experience of daily life in each other’s country, and could confirm or eradicate certain ‘pre-conceptions’ about the other’s culture compared to that of their own. For the long-term, we believe that such an exchange project would help both schools as a whole to understand Europe’s diverse and rich cultural background and be more accepting of others. By making our findings known on the school websites and the social and classical media, would further help in promoting the impact of the project. In short, it would pave the way for more open-mindedness and understanding for the future on both sides.

The methods would be as follows:
– The students of both schools will be involved in surveys in several subjects to learn about the other country, culture religion etc.
Before the visit:
– The students would gather information about the other country and compare it to one’s own ideas and prejudices as well as the prevalent image of the other country presented by the media
– We will prepare the students how to deal with circumstances that are new to them, and which qualities and attitudes they need to apply and develop, like flexibility, hospitality, humility, politeness, obedience and responsibility.

During the exchange visit:
– get to know each other through interviews and playing games and through sports.
– show each other one’s own environment (village, house etc), for example by way of a scavengerhunt
– visit a big city in the neighbourhood of the school and see different historic buildings, visit a museum and learn about the history of the visiting country.
– work in small groups (Dutch-Spanish mix) together on a project: involving the shared history of inclusion and exclusion of minorities in immigrant groups – comparing the past with the present; for example the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula to the Netherlands. Or the trade with and the exploitation of far away peoples in the 16th/17th century, compared to the present-day position of minority immigrant groups.
– Finally, give a presentation of the findings and conclusions of small groups, using video images to their parents. A local newspaper will be invited to view the presentations of the project results so as to make these findings known to the general public.

Finally, we aim to continue this European relationship and even include a new member in our network, the Greek school (1. Gymnasium of Mikra in Trifolos, Thessaloniki) and enable new generations of students each year to gain these experiences as well. The Erasmus Plus grant provides us with the security that it will be possible for all these students, and not only the lucky few, to be included in this exchange.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 6747 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stichting Coenecoop College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO DE ENSEÑANZA SECUNDARIA LAS CANTERAS