Should not it be a basic human right to be able to achieve a state of happiness in your life?The main object of the project is to help our students develop skills and strategies which make it possible for them to lead a satisfying and more active life at school thus helping them to overcome unhappy moments and frustrations which might lead to poor school results and early school leaving. There will be schools from five countries and several participating experts of different organizations that will work together on the project . All schools see the need of helping their students with their personal fulfillment at school by offering ways to make this possible.The basic idea is that happiness can only be achieved by successfully interacting with others. The project will offer strategies on how to develop skills like solving conflicts with peers and teachers, finding their personal strength and satisfaction in activities that they enjoy doing and where they can develop a positive attitude towards a healthy work-life balance which will the basis for their future lives.The project will also emphasize in fighting early school leaving, reaching a state of general well being, creating self confidence, doing voluntary work. We will be working on social inclusion, active citizenship, gender equality and fighting racism, bullying and discrimination. This will be achieved by getting students and teachers involved in relevant activities in their neighborhoods, in the local communities, which will help them see their own problems in perspective to others and promote a feeling of compassion which will become more and more important in a future Europe. All these activities will be organized by the schools involved in the project and their participating partner organizations which will support the work with different stakeholders. There will also organized training activities during the meetings by the host schools.The methodology by which the project work will be put into practice will be taking part in workshops, training programmes, role plays, discussions, giving presentations, being involved in voluntary projects, keeping the Calendar of happiness, working on the list of skills, working on the moving exhibitions "Room of Happiness" and compiling the guide book "Happy Students' Dynamics Guide". These activities will also be part of the project work at the transnational meetings where the student from the different schools will work together and exchange ideas so that different points of view are considered and the students and teachers will get an inter cultural awareness in a social context.The results of the project will be a common booklet called "Happy Students' Dynamics Guide" with strategies and ideas to lead a happy and content life that have been compiled and worked on during the different stages of the project. The guidebook will be the main outcome of the project. It will be published in the different languages of the partners and distributed among the school community, the participating organizations , stakeholders and the local institutions of the different communities so that it can be referred to after the project has ended. It will also be published in English for the general public.The content of this booklet will also be the main content of the interactive website that will be developed during the project and will remain as a rsult of the project: "The pursuit of Happiness".Another outcome of the project will be a moving exhibition called "Room of Happiness" that is shown at all the transnational meetings. Here the students present objects which they associate happiness with and which are taken from their "happiness portfolio". New items will be added at each meeting so that in the end the " Room of Happiness" will display everything that the students have worked on and produced during the project. These exhibitions will always be made open for the public.Each school will present the project outcomes in the local society in a day dedicated to Europe, which we may call "The EU Idea" day.The long term benefit of the project would be the general awareness of the importance of happiness as part of school life and the positive effects on students and teachers as well as on the communities they are part of.
The results from the project can be summarized as follows: During the three Learning Teaching Training Activities in Romania, The Netherlands and Germany all participating students have been working on a wide range of topics concerning the way in which finding the strength within yourself can be used in helping others being (more) happy, which in return helps themselves to become more happy. The mere subjects on which they have been working, enabled them to go outside, meet other people, and thereby contributing to the dissemination of the project itself. They did voluntary work with orphans, got into contact with people from all kinds of gender, helped old people, etc.etc.