The main objective of this project is to give a leading role to students of all schools involved. In our teaching practice, we have seen as conflicts in our schools have grown due to several reasons; economic depression, social inequalities, lack of perspectives in life, etc. Many of these are reflected in our institutes, and we think that we can provide valid solutions to these issues in an imaginative and innovative way. All members of this team have had experiences in the past with other European projects where different topics were successfully tackled: environment, cultural understanding, healthy habits... We want to keep on growing on our practices so that the whole educative family of our schools can get a benefit. And we are ready to do it with "Young Europeans in Action! Helping you, helping me out”. The main motivation for our project is to improve and complement each partner’s experience concerning coexistence at schools and give responsibilities to students in the coordination and organization of activities that will take place at school breaks to improve peaceful and collaborative attitudes. We want our students to become active leading characters in our schools. To get this, we have,among others,the following objectives: -Inculcate the importance of school mediation to solve problems in school and life -Improve coexistence at schools reducing tensions and disputes. -Awake in our students their role of main characters of our schools’ life as well as their compromise and responsibility in social issues -Give responsibilities to students in the organization of activities at school breaks or special days -Create channels of communication between teachers and students of different European cultures -Increase awareness of diversities as a cultural value -Integrate disabled students and raise their self-esteem by organizing guided activities, being able to travel abroad and sharing new experiences for them. -Improve communication in the mother tongue and foreign languages, motivating students and teachers to speak English and learn other European languages. -Increase collaboration between educational institutions, leading to improvement of teaching methodologies through the exchange of ideas, reinforcing creativity and innovation This partnership is formed by 6 Secondary Schools from Lithuania,Hungary,Poland,Italy,Denmark and Spain. With this representation, we reach a wide range of European diversities, in which we will achieve one of our aims: to develop and enhance a European dimension to our curricula. We all share a common wish to collaborate and work hard as a team for our objectives. Besides, all of us have already worked school mediation and organization of activities by students. On the other hand, we want to integrate students with disabilities in our project by organizing guided activities, raising their self-esteem and by travelling abroad and sharing new experiences for them. In relation to activities, our students will mediate in conflicts and we intend them to offer training in mediation to others in their own or in other schools. They will work out strategies to solve problems and foster a better coexistence by organizing activities which will bring about a fall in number of conflicts. They will carry out different activities in the visits, show results and products, evaluate the impact of the project, participate in different workshops and discussion boards about mediation and conflicts at school, share solutions and put others' experiences into practice. We would like that the results of this project could have a positive impact on various levels: firstly, on our schools, where we want levels of conflict to descend by the application of activities. Also on a local level, the schools that are situated in our district can benefit from the direct contact of our students and also from the materials we want to develop, as the Best Practice Guide we intend to issue; on national and international levels, we would like to be known in other forums about education thanks to the promotion of the results of our efforts, publication of materials and articles where we will show the positive aspects of this collaboration among different schools from distant countries, which can bring upon a feeling of belonging to a common European identity. This is a project for the future. All experiences and results that we are going to carry out will let us go forward in our essential goals of making our students actors in the our schools daily life, either in mediation, organization of activities or full responsibility of their actions, reinforcing the role of our students as democratic and supportive individuals. Therefore, what we are going to develop in this project will be valid once the last activity of the program is over. Thanks to this European funded grant, we will see that with our efforts we have turned our schools into better, democratic places to work, to study and to live.
Our Erasmus+ Project Young Europeans in Action: Helping you, Helping me out! was born with the aim of improving coexistence at all participant schools, giving prominence to the role of students in the very centre of the life of the schools, promoting their autonomy and responsibility by means of collaborative activities. In order to reach this objective, we all set off in this adventure after past experiences with other European projects, or in the improvement plans applied at each school. The association has provided an European value when sharing this background,experiences, achievements, learning from them as well as developing new perspectives in issues such as peer mediation or the organization of break time activities by students or the implication of disabled students in the life of the school. We are six schools from Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Poland and Denmark that share a common interest in developing an European dimension in our curricula, in such a way that the whole of the school communities (students, teachers, families, other staff) might benefit from this perspective that has enriched the teaching and learning of teachers and students alike these two years. We all have kept open, collaborative and innovative attitudes in order to reach the goals set in the making of the project, and we all have included its basic features into our School General Programs. Among the most important objectives, we can highlight the following ones: - We have improved coexistence at our schools by diminishing the number of conflicts, using dialogue and critical reflection, setting effective foundations to be applied in the future. - We have improved collaborative attitudes and the search for agreed solutions in a school context, avoiding aggressive attitudes within at school. - We have introduced in an effective manner the roles of mediator students, helping students and environmental agents as models to improve coexistence a school. - We have given responsibilities to students to organize break time activities, developing their autonomy. - We have applied strategies that have improved the linguistic competence in foreign languages in students and teachers, as there has always been a genuine interest in communicating ideas with others using different tools, establishing bonds, and promoting interest in other cultures and traditions. - We have used digital communication tools with educative aims when creating materials for the Project as well as when communicating with other people, either teachers and/ or students. - We have been able to involve students, teachers, families and institutions in the different activities of the project, and we have increased the collaboration with other schools with the intention of improving our methodologies thanks to the Exchange of ideas, boosting creativity and innovation. - We have integrated disabled students in the Project activities, which have let them share experiences with students from other countries as well as with students at their own school. During these two years, we have carried out the following activities: creation of the Erasmus+ Corner at each school; creation of the official logo of the Project; organization of break time activities by students; writing of peer mediation plans with the intention of introducing them in each school; organization of the Good Manner Week and of the Days of… (Europe Day, Safer Internet Day, Peace Day…); design of the official T-shirt of the Project; preparation and performance of roleplays and adverts that promote peaceful coexistence; creation of project calendars; volunteering actions: creation of a Good Practice Guide… We have also reached the most important aim of the Project: improve coexistence at each school. We have also been able to introduce peer mediation, break time activities organized by students, the promotion of a common European ideal, reached by working together with students and teachers from other countries, the integration of disabled students in trhe different actions and the implication of students, teachers, families and institutions. We have also known other education realities, and we have worked in a collaborative manner creating documents that will be beneficial to other schools which might want to inspire in our achievements. Finally, most part of the Project activities will remain at our schools as we will keep on trusting our students in the organization of activities: mediation, break time activities, helping students, good teaching practices, and we will keep on working for an European educative concept that might facilitate future meetings with schools from other countries.