The aim of the project "We want to volunteer to make the world a better place” is based on a simple idea that every student is valued equally and deserves the same opportunities and valuable experiences.We want to bring all students : talented , weak, with special needs together in one class and community regardless of their strenghts or weaknesses and seek the potential in all of them. It is essential to give those diverse learners- those with different disabilities, interests, from different social backgrounds, religions and cultures– access to knowledge, appropriate support and opportunities for academic and social achievements. We want to help everyone feel a sense of belonging, reduce discrimination and barriers to learning and participation, develop cultures, promote respect for everyone equally, improve schools for staff and parents as well as students and emphasise the value of building positive school communities. Our project aims at: •supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage as well as addressing all students from the lowest to the highest end of the academic spectrum• engaging disadvantaged pupils in voluntary and charity actions connected with many aspects of life: the society, physical and mental health, environment, culture and education • creating an awareness of the importance of learning by experience and the values of volunteering• creating a positive dialogue between cultures• learning the international and global cultural values• developing love and respect to all people (also disadvantaged ones: low skilled, refugees, immigrants, disabled), different nationalieties/ societies and to nature• developing innonative and different policies in EU volunteering services It is also an opportunity to improve the quality of school ’s work and to better prepare students from different areas of Europe for the future social and professional life. It will help all participants with language learning, which is one of the most important elements of society and economy and core competence in the functioning of the modern world. The project will enable our students to learn English effectively and to acquire basic communication skills at Finnish, Czechian, Polish, Spanish, Italian and Latvian, which will help them find themselves on the labor market, prepare for life in civil society, as well as enable them to make long-term contacts with their peers from abroad.The project also includes the development of intercultural competences which favor the creation of an open society that respects cultural diversity and is ready to cooperate.The chosen partners are diverse (schools from the south, east, west, north and the centre of Europe - Spain, Latvia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland) so that every participant can benefit from different experiences and produce relevant and high quality project results. The project involves 60 pupils, 40 teachers. All the planned actions have a volunteering base and include: peer education, planting trees, making healthy salads, performing shadow theatre, creating a project collage with natural products, creating a projet toy with recycling materials, visiting and helping older people, walking and feeding street animals, writing dictionaries. We want to reach the goals by giving language courses, seminars, lectures and audio-videos presentations, using group work, workshops, brainstorming, small group discussions, competitions.Expected results of the project:Implementation of the expected results of the project will:• increase the level of motivation to learn foreign languages and participate actively in the school life• affect the growth and development of key competencies, increase teachers and their students’ skills in the use of modern information and communication technology • contribute to improving the attractiveness and effectiveness of the learning objectives, which should translate into increasing the performance of students and their language skillsThe impacts of the project and the potential long-term benefits:Implementation of the expected results of the project will:• contribute indirectly to compensate for disparities in educational attainment of pupils, especially those having learning difficulties or at risk of premature falling out of the education system • contribute to the creation of value added – it will teach participants to give and help sincerely, without expecting benefits• enable the establishment of new international contacts and involvement of more teachers and students in the pro-European actions
With this project, we tried to create global solutions to problems that are shared by all countries involved through the promotion of volunteering among students and international cooperation. We have also tried to strengthen the European dimension in our schools and continue their internationalization processes. Our school has been the main coordinator of the project. IES Consaburum is an educational center of Public ownership that depends on the Education Department of Castilla-La Mancha. It teaches compulsory secondary education, non- compulsory secondary educatión, and vocational training. Located in the town of Consuegra, a rural area very well connected with urban centers, in recent years it has received an immigrant population and about 700 students come from the towns of Consuegra, Urda and Turleque. Currently, and given the monumentality that characterizes Consuegra, activities in the services sector derived from tourism are gaining strength. Recently and thanks to the process of internationalization that our school has suffered in recent years, it is beginning to open to the outside world and adapting to European development plans. The chosen partners have been diverse (schools from the south, east, west, north, and center of Europe: Spain, Latvia, Finland, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland) so that each participant can benefit from different experiences and produce relevant and high results. level. Our partners have been the Istituto Comprensivo Statale "Margherita di Navarra" - Monreale (Italy), Szkola Podstawowa w Psarach- Psary (Poland), Daugavpils 10.vidusskola- Daugavpils (Latvia), Stredni odborna skola Podnikatelska, s.r.o- Most (Czech Republic) and Juhani Aho school- Iisalmi (Finland). All of them are public schools, located in rural areas, in which secondary education is taught and which receive heterogeneous students. Our project has tried to encourage volunteer work among our students and it has been very enriching not only for some participating schools, such as Polish that had a Volunteer Club established but also for others, such as our school that hadn't, because we have learned a lot from their experience how to start it up. Thanks to this project, we have created Erasmus + classrooms and corners in our centers, we have consolidated our internationalization offices, promoted our Volunteer Clubs and generated endurance and synergies with other initiatives that have arisen in our centers, which have been applied to very diverse areas such as care of the environment, health, social assistance, culture, and education, always giving a European dimension to the whole process. We have also involved those students with more difficulties, making them participants in both the mobilities and the activities generated thanks to this Project, like for instance by taking part in the activities of the European Week in our school. This experience has also served to prevent the students from suffering isolation and loneliness, such as the start-up of the anti-bully league of the IES Consaburum. Some of our main objectives have been: addressing early school leaving, raising awareness of the importance of hands-on learning and volunteering values, learning international and global cultural values, developing respect for all people (disadvantaged, immigrants...), encouraging in our schools the ABP (project-based learning), better prepare students for the future social and professional life that awaits them, the improvement of English language competence, the development of competencies for an open society that respects cultural diversity, like for instance when all the partners participated in the Carnival parade of Consuegra under the slogan "united in diversity" and our prize was donated to an Italian NGO. Our collaboration began thanks to the mobility of a KA 101 project, as a result of which several coordinators began to collaborate on an eTwinning project. From there, we decided to apply for this KA 219 project and continue managing the eTwinning project linked with it (awarded with the Europen Quality Label), which has functioned as a communication platform between partners and as a dissemination platform of experiences along with the website http://consaburuminternationaloffice.weebly.com/ka -219 - we-want-to-volunteer-to-make-the-world-to-better-place. Each partner has trained active student volunteers who collaborated in Children's Homes (Poland), Homeless Assistance Center (Italy), Animal Shelter (Czech Republic), Public Places Cleaning (Latvia), Elderly- people Home ( Finland) and peer assistance, humanitarian assistance in town and environmental conservation (Spain). Each school has prepared seminars, workshops, leaflets, vídeos, etc., and the tasks written down in the application have been carried out.