The challenges of our cultures Erasmus Project

Project Title

The challenges of our cultures

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The partner schools, from the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain, are located in different geographical environments, varying from a more rural area to small town as well as medium sized and large cities; with different economical, historical, political and social backgrounds, with different religions/confessions and world-views.
Many of the participants, mainly from Germany, are children of migrant workers, refugees who experienced war and tortures, many of them come from social and economical neglected families and backgrounds. The Polish school also has pupils with mental and physical disabilities. Facing prejudice or failure, lacking confidence in themselves, some of these pupils do not view schools as an alternative for better future and a way to be better integrated in the labour market and in society.

The objectives of the project are based on three main priorities:
• Supporting schools to deal with early school leavers and disadvantaged learners and guide the students in academic outputs from the lowest to the highest spectrum;
• Promoting education for entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship among young people;
• Develop basic and transversal skills using innovative methodologies.

Our project focused on cultural identity and youth potential skills and innovation on the labour market, two aspects which are closely connected each other. All the students were encouraged to take a key role in the organisation and dissemination of the project. All tasks were carried out very systematically. They had been divided so as to touch the various spheres of life, influence on creating attitudes and opinions.The project tasks were not worked out and fulfilled only by the aid of modern information and communication technologies but also by the OER resources.
In the first year students aged 14-19 explored personal identity and cultural diversity transnationally, learning and connecting their own cultural identity and heritage with those of others in different times and places, thus developing tolerance towards other cultures. The main outputs of the first year are some sets of lessons to be used by all the partners, a logo representing the partnership, a cookery book and a calendar realized by students, who communicated through videoconferences, emails, chat blogs in social networks, in the TwinSpace chatroom and by using other modern means of communication. In the second year of the project students focused on the professional requirements needed nowadays in Europe and took part in conferences, workshops, seminars and practical trainings in the own country and in the partner countries. These trainings were set both at schools, companies and organizations which actively became involved in our project this way. The trainings also helped fostering tolerance, promoting cross-cultural knowledge and providing students with the necessary competences to improve their entrepreneurial skills: by visiting young enterprises they also learnt that self-initiative and creativity are important keys to success. These new gained entrepreneurial competences have been exploited at the beginning of the second year of the project by realising an international charity bazar in the local communities. The main outputs of this second year were the work on a students’ portfolio (with involvement of local institutions), the realization of a video about economical resources in a partner country, the realization of a tourist guide “by teenagers for teenagers” and the students’ video and radio reports summarizing what they have learnt during the project. The reports were shown/sent through the main channels of the local communities and through the Internet thanks to the TwinSpace and the modern means of communication.
The participation in the project significantly raised the motivation of learning English among students, families and teachers, too. Participants did not improve only in their IT technical skills but also in their communicational skills of spoken and written English. Drop outs have decreased. Teachers have learnt from each other and have developed lesson plans to be shared among the European community. New cooperations between schools, the local communities, the international communities and the labour market have been created. Long lasting relationships and friendship between host families, students and teachers were born.
Students have developed knowledge and skills for their future career fostering an attitude for life long learning. Moreover, they developed more tolerance, a sense of otherness and achieved cultural enrichment. The students stressed that now they are ready to discover the world, to take action in their own country and beyond its borders, they do not want to passively stand in one place. They are ready to challenge themselves.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 109895 Eur

Project Coordinator

Schwanthalerschule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• CEIP San Gregorio
• Stredni skola informatiky a financnich sluzeb, Plzen, Klatovska 200 G
• Istituto Polispecialistico Statale “San Paolo”
• Zespol Szkol nr 3, Suwalki