Happy Hours, Happy Future, Happy Europe is a partnership between IPSEOA (Istituto Professionale Servizi per l’enogastronomia e l’ospitalità alberghiera), located in Erice-Trapani, Italy and Kogeka 4 – Sint-Jozefinstituut, situated in Geel – Belgium. Both partners have a lot of experience in the gastronomic field and the hotel or tourism branch and want to engage in a collaboration to discover similarities and differences between Italian and Belgian tourist industries.Twenty participants will be chosen for each of the 8-days visits. The first visit takes place in the autumn of 2016, the second one in the spring of 2017. In the autumn of 2017 a third visit takes place and the last visit is scheduled in the spring of 2018. The main goal of the project is to prevent early school leaving. In addition, the project pursues an improvement of high level basic and transversal competences in a life long learning perspective, promoting entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship . The partnership offers a new and challenging environment in which students experience success ,as they demonstrate their skills and knowledge and learn from their peers. This will improve the participants’ understanding of themselves and their professional basis, as well as their motivation to learn and their sense of belonging to a wider community: the European one. All the activities (before, during and after the visits) are in line with the Flemish and the Italian curricula, as well for the general as for the specific goals of each of the subjects involved in the project.The participants will get a better knowledge of the local culinary traditions and techniques (such as Belgian chocolate or Italian pastry making), improving their professional competences and acquiring different way of teaching , managing and learning. Furthermore they will have better language skills, as English will be the only common language. In addition to the four meetings, the project includes a series of intense exchanges between schools, funded in part by families, aimed at the joint work of the students, the achievement of a masterclass competition and sharing of experiences between the teachers. The project will have a strong impact on local, regional, national and international level, thanks to the collaboration with different stakeholders and through the use of various dissemination channels: etwinning platform, European Commission dissemination platform, schools websites, mass media and social networks. The expected results concern a reduction of the total number of the early school leaving students and a better immage of the partcecipating schools, in terms of visibility and experience in good pratcices.Through "Happy Hours" during both virtual and physical mobility , this project aims to create real possibilities to have a "Happy Future" and a "Happy Europe" too.
Happy Hours, Happy Future, Happy Europe is a two-year- long project based on the partnership between IPSEOA (Istituto Professionale Servizi per l’Enogastronomia e l’Ospitalità alberghiera), located in Erice-Trapani, Italy and Kogeka 4 – Sint-Jozefinstituut, situated in Geel – Belgium. The schools involved are both vocational catering and hospitality institutes where the students are trained to be either chefs or waiters. The two schools have a considerable experience in Erasmus+ projects both sharing the following needs/priorities: - improving achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective - supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage - promoting entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship among young people. To carry out the project there were planned 1Transnational meeting for staff only and 4 Short-term exchanges of groups of students + Accompanying staff. Each 7-day short-term exchange was attended by a team composed by 4 teachers and 20 students from 16 to 18 years old in fair number for each school departments: cooking, pastry, restaurant services and tourism. There were a variety of combined learning and training activities scheduled throughout the 2-year period of cooperation in order to achieve the objectives set: - visiting some local food and wine factories (cellars, brewerys, chocolate and food companies, bakeries, small food stores, market stalls, cafes and bars); - workshops at school: students and teachers had the opportunity to learn how to prepare the typical local food of the two countries (Belgian chocolate, Sicilian and Belgian pastries and sweets, Sicilian and and Belgian special dishes) and to taste them too; - workshops on Belgian beers and Italian wines to learn about the best beers and wines of the two countries and the process itself; - a version of Master Chef: different contests in mixed teams, composed by Italian and Belgian students together. Teachers were the judges; - going on excursions and get to know the town and the region where the learning activities take place, visiting Trapani, Geel and the surrounding areas; - producing video diaries of the best moments of the mobilities; - exchanging recipes; - becoming familiar with the different education system of the two countries. The partnership offered a new and stimulating environment in which students and teachers put their skills and knowledge into practice in a different setting and will be able to analyze the similarities and differences between Italian and Flemish tourism industry. The participants got a better knowledge of the local culinary traditions and techniques (such as Belgian chocolate or Italian pastry making), improving their professional competences and acquiring different way of teaching, managing and learning as well as their sense of belonging to a wider community: the European one. During the two years, the participants also: - improved their knowledge of the country involved, including its history, traditions, culture, lifestyles, which will lead to better understanding and responsiveness to cultural, social and linguistic diversity; - raised their European citizenship awareness and a positive change in attitude towards intercultural values; - improved their competences in spoken English, as for most of our students this has been the first opportunity to use the language in real-life situations; - gained and developed their competences in working in team, independence, creativity, discipline, critical thinking; - raised their self-esteem, satisfaction and motivation to study. All the participants had an amazing opportunity of socializing with our friends from another country,bringing back pleasant memories from their Erasmus+ exchange. The project has a huge and positive impact on the partner school an on our whole school. We also involved teachers from other schools, parents, friends, local residents and local authorities to participate in some events (banquets, welcome days, farewell parties...). Due to the dissemination of the material produced (questionnaires, surveys, leaflets and brochures, videos, recipes...) pubblished on various dissemination channels (E-twinning platform, EC dissemination platform, schools websites, mass media and social networks, such as the page of the project on Facebook appropriately created), thanks to the collaboration with different internal and external stakeholders too, the project had a strong impact at local, regional, national and international level. Our school has gained the opportunity to act again in an European educational space and thus has raised its European dimension. It has changed its imagine for the better. Its prestige has increased, a lot of new students attend it and the percentage of early school leaving is reducing. The project has been an example of good practice that should and can be followed.