The main goal of the project is to promote European education by empowering the existing, active European clubs in Latvia, Poland and Portugal and to set up new European clubs in France and Germany, where such concept has not been developed yet.European clubs are informal groups of teachers and students interested in European Union, learning about different countries and cultures in Europe and international cooperation. Clubs are voluntary extra-curricular activities schools offer to their students. Three partners in this project have been working with European clubs so far and see the need for strengthening the activities of the networks – enabling meetings of European clubs members and trainings for developing new skills and encouraging international and intercultural exchange. Each partner has established partnership with one active European club in their country for the purpose of this project – this European clubs will take part in all project activities. They will participate in the blended bilateral mobility, involving a coaching process to help set up a new European clubs in France or Germany and conduct a series of activities in partnership with the new clubs. There are already established initial partnerships with teachers interested in introducing a concept of European clubs in their regions: Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, Ile-de-France and Poitou-Charentes in France.Throughout the project partners will collect already existing materials published about European clubs and collect good-practice examples to create a Manual “EUROPEAN CLUB – how to set it up and keep it active”, which will be free for download for all interested youth workers, young people or educational institutions.There are three main direct target groups of the project: NGOs which cooperate with schools and want to improve their activities promoting civic; youth workers - school teachers leading European clubs in particular and teachers or youth workers willing to set up a new European club in their community; young people from 15-19 years of age who are actively involved in European clubs activities or are interested to learn more about the European Union. Young people in all stages will have an active role as partners, which will help develop their entrepreneurial competence by suggesting, making up, planning, implementing, promoting and evaluating activities within European clubs. Non-formal learning methods will be at the core of all project activities. A lot of focus will be put to group building activities, variety of group and individual working tasks, active participation of all participants using role-play, games, workshop sessions and intercultural exchange in the working process of all activities.The primary impact we expect is improved European education in participating countries and increased European awareness amongst project participants. We aim to raise the level of activity of the young people and youth workers, members of European clubs involved in the project. We will connect three national networks of European clubs. Some of the clubs will attend national meetings and choose their representatives for transnational activities. Three most active European clubs will create a partnership with a new European clubs from France or Germany and organize a string of activities through on whole school-year. The effects of such partnership will be later shared within European club networks. At least three teachers in secondary schools in Germany and France will get first-hand support from an experienced colleague, who will help them set up a new European clubs in their schools and who will help them motivate the members in their activities through bilateral partnership. The results of a year-long partnership will be shared with other educational institutions in the respective to encourage the creation of more European clubs in the future.
The main goal of the project was to promote European education by empowering the existing active European Clubs in Latvia, Poland and Portugal and to set up new clubs in France and Germany, where such concept has not been developed yet. European Clubs are informal groups of teachers and students interested in the European Union, different countries and cultures in Europe and international cooperation. Clubs are voluntary extra-curricular activities schools offer to their students. Three partner non-governmental organizations had already worked with European Clubs for a few years before this project and we saw the need for strengthening the activities offered to clubs. We wanted to enable meetings of European Clubs, trainings for developing new skills and international and intercultural exchange between different clubs. Three other partners, also NGOs, joined the project with the purpose to promote the concept of European Clubs in their countries/regions which offered none or limited extracurricular European education in schools. Partners worked together on a transnational training course for teachers-Club Coordinators, two international meetings and three bilateral co-operation of European Clubs. During the training (July 2016, Portugal) nine teachers already leading European Clubs and nine teachers interested in starting such clubs met to (re-)discover the concept of European Clubs, compare educational systems, discuss procedures of starting a new club and learn about funding available to the clubs on the European level. As a result of the training six new European Clubs were established in France and Germany. New clubs were supported by active European Clubs from Poland, Portugal and Latvia. At the beginning of the school-year of 2016/2017 partnerships between active and new clubs were created. A Polish European Club from Kluczbork got in touch with a new club from Paris, a Portuguese club started cooperation with a newly established club from Angouleme in France and three clubs in Latvia (from Daugavpils and Adaži) communicated with two new clubs from Germany. With the support of the project partners European Clubs would get to know each other online and plan for new clubs to visit the experienced clubs. The clubs participated in 5-day exchanges (December 2016, January and February 2017) during which they got to know each other and their cities/countries better, and the active clubs could show the newbies some of the activities they think were useful. Non-formal learning methods were used, with the focus on group-building activities, group and individual working tasks, active participation through role-play, games, workshop sessions and intercultural exchange. New friendships arose while club members learned a lot about each other’s countries and discovered new things about the European Union. The clubs planned further activities together for the rest of the school-year. They would meet online or organize activities on the same topic at the same time informing each other of the effects. The first international meeting of European Clubs organized under the project brought together ten active clubs from Latvia, Poland and Portugal (October 2016, Poland). Students-members and teachers-leaders of clubs talked about their experience, good practices and solutions to challenges. Club members and leaders returned home equipped with valuable contacts, useful tools and practical ideas for further activities. Throughout the project we have collected opinions, ideas, tools, methods, and suggestions shared by the participants of the transnational and also local activities such as focus groups with teachers or national meetings of European Clubs organized by the project partners. We combined the material assembled during the project with research results and created a Manual about European Clubs. The 12th International Meeting of European Clubs was organized to present the information compiled in the Manual to schools interested in European Clubs and to general public during the celebrations of European Day 2017 in Warsaw, Poland. Ninety students and teachers representing 20 European Clubs and eight schools from 10 EU countries met for three days during which the Manual was launched. Its contents were presented through interactive activities inviting participants to not only read the material but also provide constructive feedback. Good practices were presented together with the Manual to around 5000 people that took part in the Schuman Parade, a positive manifestation of support for European integration in Warsaw. Some 1000 European Club members from all over Poland were invited to the Parade, take a look at the Manual and take part in activities prepared by European Clubs. The Manual was later adapted and the final result translated so it is now available in four languages – English, French, German and Polish – to young people, youth workers, teachers and educational institutions.