The less the people are educated or graduated, the more they are unemployed. Here is a very simple sentence but so relevant regarding the current reality of the European labour market. In September 2014, the unemployment rate in European Union reaches 10.1 % (around 6 % with tertiary education degrees, 8 % with upper secondary education degrees and 17 % with primary or lower secondary education level – Eurostat 2014). But if we look at the same rate for under-25-year-old people, it reaches 23 % in Europe. This latter figure combined with the fact that all the partners involved in the "HEALTHY life project (High-quality European Association for the Learning and Teaching of a Healthy and Years-long life)" are located in socially deprived areas prompts us to implement strong measures to reduce this youth unemployment rate. That's why we, five high schools from five EU countries (UK, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and France, for a total of approximately 200 students and 20 teachers directly engaged), came up with the idea to build this partnership with a view to: • make our learnings more attractive in order to improve our students’ motivation, • foster our students’ ambition for higher education in order to enhance our students' future employability, • develop our students’ skills, propensity to mobility, open-mindedness, self-confidence and EU-citizenship. The partnership between high schools from different EU countries and with various local partners, both from other education institutions and from the world of work, has numerous short-term and long-term benefits, not only for the learners like mentioned above, but also for the involved staff and institutions in terms of pedagogical approaches (eg. CLIL) and materials, openness to Europe, reputation and therefore in terms of positive and active school guidance towards our organisms. To disseminate the project results from local to European level, and to allow other institutions, staff, and students, not directly engaged in the project to take full benefit from it, a massive dissemination and communication process will be implemented, with the organization of local and regional dissemination events, the construction of a project web platform, the partnership with the French department for the education in sustainable development. The topic of the project is a global concern and supports the EU Health strategy “Together for Health” (which in turn supports the overall EU 2020 strategy): HEALTHY LIFE, it ranges through various fields such as Environment, Food, Sport, Prevention & Safety. So, to answer to the question 'How to obtain and maintain a healthy population in Europe?', the project includes various and numerous activities which address all these sub-topics: construction of an electrical vehicle; first aid trainings; physical activities; designing of a healthy menu; drafting of a template weekly program to ensure a healthy way of living (including meals and physical activities); creation of a virtual "Healthy life" cookbook; realization of large-scale surveys; advertising campaign for a 'Healthy way of living'; prevention techniques learning for interpersonal conflicts and crisis situations; organization of a 'Healthy day' simultaneously in all the partner schools; construction of a project-related website; ... And to prepare, organize and implement all these activities, a strong development of collaborative activities is planned at a European level and at a local level between learners, staff and local partners. This is the core of the project. All along the project and in each country, the high school students will be involved in all the project activities from the first project presentation to the project’s final report and beyond. Teaching, learning, mentoring, reporting, advertising will be part of the students’ activities like the preparation of the hosted mobilities and the delivery of the planned activities and trainings will be too. Furthermore, most of the mobilities will involve students and staff from the five countries to enable a real development of team spirit. These mobilities will mainly consist on the implementation of various activities, like listed above, where hosted learners will receive transferable skills which will be detailed and gathered on the Europass mobility certificate to ensure the recognition of these skills in their own country. Thanks to all the project activities, we will actively contribute to the achievement of the EU2020 objectives especially concerning its priorities in terms of education. And we will obtain a more educated, graduated and employable population which will live longer and... healthier. Finally, if we refer to the Healthy Life Years (HLY) indicator, which is in the core set of the European Structural Indicators... If the current increasing trend of life expectancy persists, the average lifespan may be 100 years by 2070... So… Longer life, why not, but HEALTHY life, YES!!
The HEALTHYlife project is a strategic partnership which includes 5 partners from 5 different countries (Romania, Poland, United Kingdom, Bulgaria and France). HEALTHYlife is an acronym that means High-quality European Association for the Learning and Teaching of a Healthy and Years-long life. The project tended to answer to the question: “How to obtain and maintain a healthy population in Europe”. So it dealt with the subject matter of HEALTH, a global concern which supports the EU Health strategy “Together for Health”… which in turn supports the overall EU 2020 strategy. The project objectives (and challenges) were numerous. We can sum up these objectives with the following sentences. • make our learnings more attractive in order to improve our students’ motivation. • foster our students’ ambition for higher education in order to enhance our students' future employability, • develop our students’ skills, propensity to mobility, open-mindedness, self-confidence and EU-citizenship. Our students are often suffering from a lack of motivation and aspirations. It comes from their backgrounds, from the social situation of their family (unemployment, poverty, stepfamily,…). This situation leads some of them to early school leaving. So we need to find solutions to tackle these problems… a common concern in all our countries, in all our schools (5 vocational high schools, with a large part of students from the lowest socio-professional categories). The HEATLHY life project, and the openness to Europe in general, are an outstanding opportunity to tackle these problems of education, lack of aspirations & motivation, and social exclusion. The HEALTHY life project activities ranged through 4 different subtopics listed below. Other activities directly related to health in general have also been developed: slideshows and mind maps related to occupational well-being, transnational surveys, production of healthy life key rings,… • Environment, because if we want to keep on living healthy, we need to respect the environment. So, various activities have been carried out (in one of the project school or transnationally) along the project, related to: greenhouse gas emissions (slideshows), electrical energy consumption (questionnaire), smart cities (slideshows), visit of organic farms and other eco-friendly industrial plants, construction of an ecofriendly vehicle,… • Food, because if we want to live healthy and avoid overweight and obesity, we must take care of what we eat and drink, along the day, along the week. So many activities have been carried out in this field such as cooking activities or diet activities: cooking of organic products, study of local products and season products for the cooking of dietary/healthy dishes, construction of week schedule (slideshows) for a healthy way of living (and eating), visit of local and organic bakery, games (Guess what you eat!! a game related to the sugar content of famous junk food),… • Physical activities, because if we want to stay fit, we need to do physical activities regularly. So, out of the mobilities as well as during each of the mobility, sport sessions have been planned: bicycles, zumba, football and bubble foot, fitness, rackets sports, hicking-trekking activities, “mud-walk”, … • Prevention & Safety, because if we want a healthy population, with as less as possible work stoppages, with as less as possible damages in case of accidents, we need to teach people how to react in case of crisis situation and accidents. So, a simulation of earthquake has been carried out during the mobility to Romania. Participants were taught how to react. A whole first aid training has been built in English in France along the second project year. Students have built slideshows for each of the first aid gestures. French students became first aid trainers for their foreign counterparts during the mobility to France. All the project evidences are directly downloadable on the project website. http://erasmusplus-healthylife1517.jimdo.com The impact on the students and pedagogical teams is very important. At short terms, students gradually realized what they were doing, what they were part of. It developed their open-mindedness and ambition, and above all their pleasure to learn in their school. At middle terms, for some of them it was the first step towards a longer implication in European mobilities. Indeed, some of them, after their first (one-week) mobility abroad through the HEALTHYlife project, have carried out a one-month vocational training session abroad in the framework of KA1 project… so a developed propensity to mobility. Concerning the pedagogical teams, they have tested new pedagogical methods and IT tools. Some of them will be embedded in the normal curricula (ex: use of ICT web 2.0 tools, group-work methods).