Together Better- Join Us! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Together Better- Join Us!

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: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The process of globalization touches all the countries, also these of the European Union. The technological progress, ICT make international communication easier, but, on the other hand, they very often lead to replacing the real world with the virtual one. Unemployment, crisis cause people’s migration, are the reasons of broken families, and the process of making the society poorer. Addictions, violence, disability, injustice, which result in society’s aging, race,culture, ethnic discrimination, are the still rising problem, together with the desire of the present world to be „beautiful, pretty and rich”
All these factors cause that many young people feel lonely, not needed, isolated, which causes their absence at school , often leads to dropping from it, leads to depression, the feeling of low self- esteem, and, in the consequence to make the number of the unemployed, resigned from life people, who are not able to interact with others, bigger and bigger.
Our project „Together better – join us” was an attempt to find the way to engage all these people, who feel bad in their society, are afraid of coming into relationships, into peer groups, and in the consequence, to let them come back to the society, in order to make them able to cope with their adult life, to be able to cope with challenges, let them be more creative, encourage them to work in the group, be open in the contacts with others, „different” people, with different cultures, social status, intellectual and moving abilities, etc.
We wanted to achieve it through the same way of cooperation of 8 countries from various parts of Europe, different as far as geography, culture, industrial development and the systems of education were concerned. Thanks to that, during the trainings for students and teachers, we could work out the models ant strategies for the interaction among people rejected or endangered with rejecting, with the rest of the society and we got the support for most of the people. We wrote down in the special guide for teachers and students as many different models of behavinig and reacting in the cases of various reasons of rejection, as possible.
We have planned three project meetings (in Greece,and Estonia) for the teachers of all the partner schools, to work out all the necessary topic and financial documents, describing the needs and resources. We prepared working schedule, planned the form, methods, type of activities during the trainings. We have had 7 trainings (Estonia, Belgium, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Turkey, Poland) – for students and the staff, in the form of 5- day- trainings- artistic workshops, plays, games, classes with the specialists, conferences, speeches, discussions with activating techniques and practical activities.
The main aim was cooperation, learning through it, we gave the tasks to each participant, according to their needs and abilities ( for example for disabled students, with SEN), „being together”, interactions, creating relationships, we had common tasks, that we done. We reminded todays Europeans the basic assumptions and rules of creating the European Union, when partnership, brotherhood, the force of cooperation, equality among people are a priority, and the fact that people are different makes learning from one another more interesting and inspiring.
The project was aimed not only at students and teachers of partner schools, but also at parents, local schools’ communities, headmasters, ( events such as The day of the safe Internet, The day of kindness, Something cool for everyone), at the dwellers (happening, flash mob, muralia), at the workers of education from the region of partner schools ( the training summarizing the project) – not direct participants – 13826 people.
Thanks to our partner cooperation, we created many didactic materials, lesson plans, work plans, worksheets in English and national languages (CD- “Faces of integration” abd on Facebook), films and presentations from the whole project and guides: „Faces of integration”” for the teachers and for the students „ Together Better” written in English, available on the websites of the FB group, and on all the schools websites. Our products contains also: a logo of the project, diaries in each country, certificates of participation and Mobility Europass .
Now we know, that the idea of the society which is open, tolerant, strong with the joy of life, full of the power of young people, who are able to communicate via the media, using the inventions of the civilizations in a safe way, thanks to our project is the key to the biggest number of young Europeans, and the worked- out models and strategies how to deal with the rejected people. Project become the effective tool for teachers of the European Union, which, in the long perspective will minimize the scale of this problem in many schools of the European community.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 223135 Eur

Project Coordinator

Specjalny Osrodek Szkolno-Wychowawczy w Sieradzu & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Kohtla-Järve Lasteaed Tareke
• Hatice Erdem Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi
• CEIP CERVANTES
• Gemeentelijke school voor buitengewoon onderwijs Sancta Maria
• Mellanvångsskolan
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO GALILEO GALILEI
• EEEEK KILKIS