Hand in hand to create social responsibility in young adults Erasmus Project

Project Title

Hand in hand to create social responsibility in young adults

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: Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Social dialogue

Project Summary

CONTEXT
Developing social responsibility is in a way challenging, as children have a tendency towards selfabsorption.
Their world revolves around them, their needs and their purposes.
It is not something that they have to be blamed for, of course, as it is the attitude characteristic of their age and of our times.
Unless we try to address this lack of involvement, they will most likely not change it on their own.
Teaching social responsibility means not only making children aware of the world, but also helping
them understand themselves and the others.
By achieving this, we will make our schools a better place, in which inclusion and mutual support are the norm. We will identify challenged groups in our communities and schools and try to make a difference.
Therefore, we have initiated this partnership with a view to joining our efforts and experiences, to get to understand ourselves and the others better.
We want to observe how 5 different countries in Europe understand the importance of social responsibility, what projects they involve their students in and how they organise them. We wish to follow the good examples that we observe in each school.
OBJECTIVES
There are a lot of benefits that we considered to be obtained through volunteering and these will also turn into project objectives along with objectives stemming from the international dimension of this project. Some of the most important ones would be:
– To increase our students’ sense of community and reduce engagement in risky behaviour
– To develop positive civic behaviour and self-esteem
– To develop students’ sense of responsibility for their communities
– To improve communication, time management and critical thinking skills
– To improve language skills
– To boost attitudes of tolerance, respect and non-discrimination
– To develop intercultural competence and cultural awareness
PARTICIPANTS
The project is aimed at students and developing their civic responsibility.
Therefore, they are the first group in the order of importance.
Students we are targeting are 12-14 years old, boys and girls, some of them belonging to disadvantaged groups (immigrants, learning disorders, physical disabilities, social challenges, migrant background etc.).
An overall number of 100 students will participate directly and a number of 40 accompanying teachers.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
There are 5 main exchanges planned within the project.
Each exchange includes 3 main topics:
– Presentation of social challenges in the local community successful volunteering projects in the school
– Initiation and
– Implementation of volunteering project with foreign students.
C1 is held in United Kingdom, C2 in Romania, C3 in Poland, C4 in Turkey and C5 in Greece.
IMPACT
All partner schools are expected to benefit from the activities in the long run.
First of all, the teachers who accompany students in mobilities will become a source in the project.
They observe and analyse the practices that each host school has in terms of classroom organization, teaching methods, use of technology, organization of the staff and aspects related to extracurricular projects – who is in charge of them, what resources are used, how students are organized and coordinated for these events.
Also, they will observe the relationship of the school staff with students’ parents. They will then present the information to their colleagues on return.
Therefore, teachers will broaden their expertise and will exchange practices, applying the best ones and the suitable ones in their schools.
As a result, the school will benefit in the long run.
RESULTS
Concretely, our project will produce the following results: initial and final questionnaires related to involvement of students in volunteering projects at the beginning and at the end of the project, volunteering self-assessment forms which will be applied to students to observe their level of awareness of local problems, their talents and skills with which they could contribute to volunteering projects, presentations of partner institutions, presentations of volunteering projects in each school, projects implemented collaboratively by the 5 partners during exchanges and students’ collaborative work results during them, exchange reports designed by host partners, dissemination materials – posters, brochures, flyers; evaluation instruments applied on participants, project evaluation documents, impact report designed at the end of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 149540 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sanders School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Özel Renk Ortaokulu
• EXPERIMENTAL INTERCULTURAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL OF ATHENS
• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA ALEXANDRU VLAHUTA GUGESTI
• Szkola Podstawowa im. ks. dr. Stanislawa Sychowskiego w Skrzeszewie