HEROES: Helping the Earth Restore Order through Environmental Sustainability Erasmus Project

Project Title

HEROES: Helping the Earth Restore Order through Environmental Sustainability

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

Sustainability is a buzzword, that covers more problems than it does solutions. Each country has to deal with at least some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as visible problems in its country. With partner schools in England, Spain and The Netherlands, we would hope to illustrate how these SDGs are being achieved or how they are faltering or failing to protect people, places or things and look together with our pupils, our HEROES, at how we can stop, reverse or rethink the issue and seek a better solution using real examples, presented to us by organisations either at locations or in the host schools. The name of the game is international collaboration. Only then can our HEROES, really help the Earth restore order through environmental sustainability.

The groups will be made up of pupils from diverse backgrounds (social, economic and ethnical) from the three countries with a wide range of ages. Whilst we have worked 15 to 16 pupils from each country into this subsidy request, we would endeavour to bring more students with us, like we have done over the last 8 years in our partnerships with schools across Europe, only through inclusive learning, can we make a greater impact and achieve more. We would hope to be able to involve ±225 pupils in the mobilities, well above the number that we are seeking subsidy for.

We will bring the SDGs into the forefront of our learners’ minds and through discovering what they mean in each country, our pupils will gain a better understanding of society in their own countries as well as the host countries we will be visiting. We would offer opportunities through real-life issues to our pupils to solve and come up with a better solution to how we currently think and deal with certain issues.

Pupils will be prepared for each of the mobilities in their own countries, whilst the host country will have their students work on the visible examples of the SDGs in their own country and present this on day one. With visits planned to a small number of places close to the host school, we will see the SDGs in action in the different countries and will be able to bring the ideas around sustainability from larger issues right down to the individual and seek the solutions there. We will have activities in the host schools for example guest speakers and/or organisations that will tell us about their work and how they deliver to achieve the goals. On the final day of the mobilities, the multinational/multicultural groups will be presenting on what they learnt and what they can do as young HEROES in turning around some of the issues the SDGs raise on an individual level, community level and where possible take their ideas up to national and international level.

The methodology above will be expanded to creating news reports, articles and pieces for our website and the etwinning site. With the handle Erasmus+HEROES, we would hope that the pupils would be seeing how they can spread the news about the project using social media and learning how important it is to use these forms of media to engage other young people to becoming HEROES, seeing issues and dealing with them straight up.

This project, if funded, would be an amazing addition to our Personal Development and Citizenship courses in the three schools, as it brings the learning out of the classroom into a different country and working together with other young thinkers, who have different perspectives on life and its challenges. The potential long term benefits are that we are helping shape our young adults into becoming responsible, accountable HEROES who will take action and not be afraid to stand up for what they believe in.
Our project will help young people:
Improve their communication skills, help them build a global network, help them find fresh ideas for their communities and issues that they are confronted with in their daily lives, in the long-term, these students will gain a competitive edge and have the chance to do something totally different to other pupils in school. Their confidence will rise, their interest in the world will be expanded and their understanding of the SDGs and their planet’s health will be deepened. We believe that our project will Help Earth Restore Order through Environmental Sustainability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 98960 Eur

Project Coordinator

RSG-Enkhuizen & Country: NL

Project Partners

• INSTITUTO EDUCACION SECUNDARIA GINES PEREZ CHIRINOS
• Laidlaw Schools Trust T/A The Excelsior Academy