The Young European and Well-being: A healthy body and body image now and through time Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Young European and Well-being: A healthy body and body image now and through time

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The Young European and Well-being (YEW): A healthy body and body image now and through time was a three-year project between three public schools: Vesannon yhtenäiskoulu from Vesanto, Finland; Liceo Statale A. Serpieri from Rimini, Italy; and Zespol Szkol Nr 7 from Toruń, Poland, all in the field of secondary education.

Each of the schools brought their own expertise into the project: the Finnish school had specialised using ICT tools in learning and teaching, the Italian school brought in their knowledge on art, and the Polish school had insights on the activities related to ecology and sports. Also, the backgrounds of the schools had a strong impact on the project as Vesannon yhtenäiskoulu is a small countryside school with students ranging from the age of 7 until the age of 19, Liceo Statale A. Serpieri is a big high school located in the immediate surroundings of the city of Rimini including artistic, scientific and sport branch, Zespol Szkol Nr 7 is a city centre school with primary and middle school classes and classes for disabled children and children with hearing problems.

The project was set up at a time when all our schools expressed concern for the well-being of our students. The need for the project had been observed in the daily lives in all these schools and also through student health surveys. The target group of the project was teenagers, especially aged 14 to 18 years. Also younger students starting from 7 years old and older ones up to 19 years old were involved in some activities of the project.

The project aims:
– Increasing students’ knowledge and awareness of the concept of well-being from various perspectives (a healthy diet, physical exercise, a healthy body image and the balance between technology usage and other activities) and bringing the European dimension into them.
– Having a positive influence on the attitudes of students and their current lifestyles.
– Increasing students’ interest in the matters of health and well-being and involving the students in the process of taking care of themselves in all ways possible.
– Preventing school leaving before graduation.
– Improving three key competences in particular: communication in the mother tongue, communication in foreign languages, and digital skills.
– Improving the intercultural skills of both students and teachers, developing European cooperation, and exchanging good teaching practices between our schools.

The project included two transnational meetings for the teachers: a preparatory one in Vesanto and an evaluative one in Rimini. The project entailed three short-term five-day exchanges of groups of students: Rimini, Torun and Vesanto. During the exchanges, the students had workshops on some of the most important project topics, such as a healthy diet and the body image in arts. The students worked in multicultural groups using cooperative learning methods and also improving their English, intercultural and cooperative skills. Great importance was also given to the work at schools between the exchanges. The project consisted of numerous activities, such as preparing presentations and tutorials for sports and dancing, creating an international cookbook and cooking healthy meals, and promoting guidelines for a healthy lifestyle.

The project results and impact for all of the students involved were:
– Enhancing their English and native language skills.
– Improving their social and cooperative skills and intercultural understanding.
– Increasing their digital skills and their awareness on balanced internet usage.
– Positive change in students’ attitudes towards matters relating to health and well-being.
– Learning to cook healthy and traditional dishes from the project countries.

The products created throughout the project:
– 1st year: presentation “What is a healthy diet like?”, leaflets devoted to sports facilities and shops with healthy food
– 2nd year: presentation “Body image in our countries’ art – a summary”
– 3rd year: a handbook of the pros and cons of physical exercise
– Years 1-3: an international cookery book, a project blog with the help of the teachers (yew-vrt.blogspot.it), various presentations and displays on the project topics.

The longer term benefits we expect from this project are that the students will become healthier in a physical sense, more fit, and also more accepting of their own bodies. They share their knowledge with their friends and family and this will hopefully prevent diseases in our towns as well. Thus, we could expect lower economic costs of medical treatment in the future, and this will benefit the local and regional health care. We hope that they also widen their horizons about their future job and studies in a more European awareness. The teachers will continue to use new teaching methods and their improved ICT skills and implementing the European dimension in teaching.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103924 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vesannon yhtenäiskoulu & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa Nr 10
• Liceo Statale A. Serpieri