Global Awareness In Action Erasmus Project

Project Title

Global Awareness In Action

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: Health and wellbeing; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

“It’s about becoming aware of who we are, questioning the world and our place in the world. It is about appreciating the fullness of each moment we live and above all, being in contact with our being in its fullness. »Jon Kabat-Zinn

This project was first born of observations. As teachers in secondary schools, we have seen increasing absenteeism in recent years; attitudes of dropping out of school and passivity towards school challenges (students who have little or no involvement in their career); the development of anxiety about the world, directives, reforms and the use of this anxiety to decline their own responsibility; a significant deterioration in the school climate which undermines the serenity of the relationships and conditions necessary for learning; a lack of awareness of themselves, others and the environment around them, and the impact they can have on them; from a distance and an absence of accountability in the face of concrete actions to be implemented to limit our environmental impact (sorting of waste, responsible consumption, etc.).

Our reflections and our experiences led us to propose a project which would be articulated around the concept of mindfulness: it seems to us vital to develop the individual, collective and universal conscience in an objective of sustainability. This “universal awareness” goes through the individual and his singularity, the relationship with others and the relationship with nature, and is expressed in action.
Thus was born our G.A.I.A. – Global Awareness In Action – France / Iceland project.

The French and Icelandic participants in the project will be teachers (4 + 4) and students (15 + 15), volunteers and motivated, ready to commit over a period of 24 months.

Our objectives are both individual, collective and global and revolve around three major themes: the well-being and health of individuals, the environment (its perception and protection), the development of common values ​​and an individual and collective citizen commitment.
It is about learning through experience and action around three transversal axes.
– EXPERIMENT, FEEL, GET CONSCIOUSNESS: develop the experience and practice of mindfulness in everyday life, in its relationships with oneself and with others, in its relationships with the environment and with nature, by initiating the participants to this practice through yoga, meditation and hiking in the great outdoors.
– REFLECTING: understanding and analyzing how humans interact with their environment and implements strategies to develop their resources; understand the consequences of human activities on the environment and societies; understand the need to fight global warming and initiate an environmental transition; understand how everyone, individually and collectively, within their means and at the local level can limit their negative impact on the natural environment. This axis will go through speecific activities in groups (research, report of visits, written productions, oral presentations, posters and leaflets, slodeshow or videos).
– ACT concretely on a daily basis and throughout the project, share experiences, in order to anchor a sustainable and responsible way of life among the participants, so that each becomes a more informed consumer and actor in their mode of consumption (energy, food, waste), able to share his sensitivity with his comrades and his family.

Our pedagogy and methodology will be active: the students will be engaged in physical activities (yoga, hiking) and in training and reflection activities, during periods of exchange, which will involve group work in common, visits, workshops. Students will be required to regularly review their practices and their personal advancement in relation to specific objectives (Boarding pass to GAIA) but also to build tools to transmit their experiences and knowledge, as well as to initiate durable behavioral changes .

Participation in the project will be a prerequisite for a deeper and concrete commitment by each of the participants, and through this, to a swarming of the practices experienced during the duration of G.A.I.A. and their results to all the school communities but also to the family and friendly circles of the project actors. We wish to contribute to the spread of mindfulness, of the concept of interaction between men and nature, and thus to allow the existence of more responsible citizens and actors of their life course.

This project therefore has a societal dimension: to train responsible, committed and citizen consumers-actors.

“Change can only start in each of us”, Ilios Kotsou

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65968 Eur

Project Coordinator

LYCEE STEPHEN LIEGEARD & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Fjolbrautaskolinn vid Armula