Lack of motivation to learn is a common problem among students, but it has got even worse in recent years due to economic crisis, which has seriously affected the countries involved in this association and consequently, many families in our communities. Our students’ prospects of finding a job upon secondary school have fallen and so has their interest in academic results. Many teenagers prefer spending time online, playing computer games or using virtual social networks rather than interacting with their friends, practicing a sport or doing any kind of physical activity. They have no opportunity to travel abroad, to attend any cultural events or have foreign languages, sport or dance lessons after school. Despite the efforts of most teachers, it is difficult to motivate some of them to study. Their future looks unclear to them, some regard knowledge and culture as unnecessary for their future life and cannot see the point in learning. Moreover, in some schools there is a large number of students with a migrant background whose families are going through even harder times. The final aim of this project is to help change their attitude towards school and learning, give them strategies to learn effectively and make them understand that their future is their hands. In connection to this, a further goal of this project is to make teenagers aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and the impact it has on their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Therefore, it is essential that they learn first what three aspects a healthy lifestyle consists of: regular physical activity, wholesome diet and a healthy leisure. Awareness of the connection between this three core concepts and common problems such as bad school results, lack of energy or motivation, concentration difficulty, etc. will allow them to reverse them by changing some habits. It is important to make them aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, which means not only caring about what they eat, but also about how that affects the community they live in. We should teach them to make a conscious choice on what they consume. We want to bring real situations into the classroom, awake their awareness to learning and studying and teach them to choose the best products to promote regional products in the world. We also want to teach them to take the best out of new technologies, but also to find other ways of entertainment which can contribute to their physical and mental well-being and can help them to develop personal and interpersonal skills. That is why we want to provide them with their own set of emotional intelligence strategies such as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, self-esteem, empathy or assertiveness, which can help them through lifelong. During the project, students (aged 15) are going to work simultaneously on the three aspects. Contents will range from general/global to specific/local, that is, from facts concerning all individuals to those concerning specific groups or regions . Activities will be distributed in 4 different stages throughout 24 months. During each stage, every partner team will work with their own students to research on the scheduled issues and prepare the planned products. Mobilities will be an opportunity for students to present and share their work, cooperate, make the previous work more meaningful and they will set the end of a stage and the beginning of the next one.
The partnership has consisted of a general secondary school situated in a working-class neighbourhood of Tarragona (Spain) with a high rate of immigrant students, a much bigger secondary school of Barcelos (Portugal) and a Vocational Secondary Education High School specialized in technical studies such as Computer Science, Food technology or Health and Welfare. Despite their different profiles, our schools shared the same concern about teenagers’ demotivation leading to school drop-out. Moreover, the financial crisis, which affected our countries in a specially hard way, made many teenagers’ believe that further studies were not worthwhile since work-prospects were lacking. In addition, their demotivation towards school, caused by their lack of self-confidence, was the cause of their unhealthy lifestyle. Many of our teenagers preferred staying at home playing videogames than hanging around with their friends, going for a walk, doing sport or staying active. However, this sedentariness was not providing them with any relaxation or feeling of fulfilment either. To make things worse, they did not care about their nutritional habits and the consumption of junk food, energetic soft drinks, etc. We thought that defeating young people’s demotivation could only happen by enhancing their self-esteem and autonomy. Therefore, the project aimed at providing them with a wide range of tools and skills which might be useful life-long, either for their personal, academic or working life. First, it was by showing them how healthy habits can contribute to a better mind-set, relaxation and to improve the way they relate to others, be fitter, get better academic results. But before that, they needed to find out what a healthy lifestyle actually implied, namely a wholesome diet, physical activity but also a mature control of the emotions and a clever choice of leisure activities which helped to stay mentally and/or physically active. Understanding this helped them to know which changes needed to be made to attain certain aims. Activities dealing with food habits ranged from general to specific and aimed at providing them with knowledge about human nutrition, learning to read and interpret food labels, getting to know food locally produced and learning to cook traditional recipes based on those native ingredients. Moreover, they learnt about the advantages of local production/consumption and the meaning of “Protected Designation of Origin” marks. This way, students have learnt the value of local produces and the work of producers in their home territories and also got to know those from the partner cities. Throughout the project’s lifespan students have also approached an enormous range of sports The aim was to make them realize that physical activity can be fun and that everybody can find a way of exercising which suits its needs and tastes(e.g. tae-kwon-do, capoeira, Zumba, surfing, kayaking, Pilates, stretching). During exchanges, partners have invited each other to try those sports popular in their communities. At home, each school has organised the so-called Get Fit sessions, that is, different activities to foster active leisure after school among students, their families and other locals . There have also been activities intended to offer them an alternative way of spending their free-time which did not implied using new technologies. Thanks to "Fit in the Street" activities, they have learnt that it is possible to disconnect from every-day stress and have fun while contributing to mental or physical fitness with activities like parkour, hiking, street dance, etc. But they have discovered that sometimes going back to the roots and revisiting tradition can be exciting as well. Learning to dance the partners’ folk dances, to play traditional games from each country, etc. has been an opportunity to join culture and active leisure. Besides this, students have also become acquainted with quieter cultural activities and learnt to practice mindfulness though art or cooking. All in all, after two years of international cooperation, participants have not just strengthened their bonds to the community they live in through the organization of open events, the common work with local stakeholders or the promotion of local produces abroad. They have also got to know different cultures, shared experiences with fellow students, used English as the common language and also developed curiosity for the languages spoken in the partner countries. These achievements have made them aware of their actual capabilities and thus, increased their self-esteem remarkably. Now they feel proud of themselves and confident enough as to help other students and undertake further personal and academic projects. Teachers have exchanged their know-how and improved their teaching practices. Partner schools have opened to Europe, developed their internationalization strategies while stablished as quality educational institutions within their own cities.