F.A.C.E. – Future Active Citizens of Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

F.A.C.E. – Future Active Citizens of Europe

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law)

Project Summary

The project was successfully carried out and completed with but few impediments. In general, the cooperation between the partners was harmonious and we supported each other well. Whether student or teacher, it was an enriching experience for everyone involved. Our primary aim of enhancing the civil competence of our students was realized not only through their hands on experiences while discovering the diversity and coexistence of various EU member countries, but also through the content of our work.

The same context/background of our project applies that is mentioned in the “project summary at application time” above, hence there is no need to repeat it in this section. The participants were chosen after they had applied to partake in the project. The eligibility criteria was based on age, English fluency, motivation, reliability and good conduct. The acquisition of participants apparently went well with our partner schools, we as the coordinating school experienced some difficulties though. For one, the minimum amount of required students only even apllied for the project. Of these initial participants, several dropped out throughout the timespan of our project (but a few new students also joined the project later on). There were different reasons for this such as leaving school for vocational training, having to take other lessons parallel to out Erasmus time slot, eventual lack of motivation on account of the workload etc. In the end there were only five participants who partook in the whole project. Of those five, two had to leave four months before completing the project because they were involved with their “Abitur” exams. This in turn made it impossible to complete our before and after questionnaire, seeing that the data would have been rather insignificant.

Apart from that impediment, everything else pretty much went as initially planned. Each school was able to accomodate the participants in host families and all of the scheduled activities took place. The flashmob was misaligned from Portugal to Germany on account of a misunderstanding, but all results and goals were reached nonetheless. The students devised a common website which was phenomenally administered by our Romanian partners. All of the Learning/Teaching/Training activities are documented there and can be accessed at www.online-faceproject.com. To put it briefly, the students learned and taught each other about the foundation and history of the EU, about the specific framework of their respective countries within the EU, about their rights and obligations as EU citizens as well as about the dangers the EU faces despite all of its advantages. Much of our common work is documented in a final outcome in the form of a magazine. Next to their scientific work, the students also had podium discussions with guest speakers from the European Parliament, visited a plenary session in the European Parliament, partook in creative workshops (paintings, T-shirt designs, debates) and even submitted some paintings to a European Art Exhibition in Portugal.

Various reports and articles were released by the local press and the flashmob was held in the Mönckebergstraße, Hamburg’s main downtown shopping area. The dissemination and impact of our work is considered to be effective and successful by our whole team. Most of our material has been uploaded in the Beneficiary’s dashboard and is currently waiting for approval. A few files were unfortunately too big to be uploaded,one of which can be viewed on our website though. Concerning long-term benefits, many of our students found good friends and acquired substantial knowledge about the EU that will undoubtedly benefit them and enable an active participation in current or future social/political happenings. This became apparent in our final evaluation of the project with the students during our last Learning/Teaching/Training activity in Hamburg.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99565 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stadtteilschule am Hafen Standort Neustadt & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Colegiul National Pedagogic “Carmen Sylva”
• Escola Secundária Manuel Cargaleiro
• Forum Private Greek School