CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES The topic of the project, Healthy Lifestyle, comes as a result of data collected in the 5 partner schools involved. As such, the rates of obesity problems (OP) and lack of regular physical activities (RPA) in our schools are: CZ Partner School pupils have 25%OP, 40% RS IT Partner School has 20% OP, 45% RS ES Partner School has 25% OP, 50% RS RO Partner School has 27% OP, 35% RS TR Partner School has 20% OP, 35% RS With this worrying data in mind, we have established as the main objective of the project to raise students’ awareness of the causes and effects of obesity in relation to the sedentary that characterizes the current generations of students. At the same time, in order to measure the actual impact of the school we have proposed to decrease these rates by the end of the 2-year project. Another aim of this project is to get in contact with schools from other European countries in order to observe the situation in each of them and exchange good practices related to ways of combating such problems. METHODOLOGY With all these in mind, we have divided our topic into several sub-topics which will constitute the theme of each meeting and exchange envisaged in the project: 1. CZ - M1 - REQUIREMENTS FOR A HEALTHY LIFE 2. IT - C1 - EFFECTIVE WAYS TO PREVENT OBESITY 3. ES - C2 - HEALTHY EATING HABITS 4. RO - C3 - DEVELOPING LONG-TERM HEALTHY EATING HABITS 5. CZ - C4 - SPORTING ACTIVITIES IN SCHOOL During these meetings students will be in the centre of all activities, as we believe that by involving them directly and supervising their work, the project will have a stronger impact on them. The project activities will result in the elaboration of 2 IOs – 1) Nutritional information and healthy foods for School Canteens, 2) Recommendation Book for improving regular sports in schools. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES During the exchanges, students will join classes in the morning and, in afternoons, they will work towards the achievement of specific goals within each activity: C1 - IT The project teams will join the canteen and observe the dishes prepared regularly there. Then, each school cooks and presents traditional healthy dishes from their own countries and will actually cook 1 meal that will be tasted by the other participants; C2 - ES The activities will be organized in a forum presented by the students and which includes sub-topics such as - What is obesity?/ Causes / Effects on Health and social image/ The current rates of Obesity; C3 - RO students put together the information and statistical data collected and will compile a brochure which contains a set of DOs and DON'Ts that every person should follow in order to live a healthy life; C4 - CZ students and teachers will run workshops in which all kinds of easy-to-do exercises and games/sports will be presented and performed. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTS Students/teenagers: Each exchange involves the participation of 4 students/country, which means an overall number of 16 students/country who will participate directly in the exchanges. These students will be selected prior to each mobility, based on transparent criteria, which will involve command of English, ICT skills, voluntary work, involvement in the school-based activities and motivation. The number of indirect beneficiaries is a lot larger, as every school will involve at least 10 other students before each mobility in the school-based pre-exchange activities. Teachers/Adults: There will be teams of 7 teachers in each partner organisation so 35 in total who will manage the project implementation. Each of them will be assigned clear tasks from the beginning. This team will involve managerial staff and at least 1 English teacher, 1 PE teacher, 1 Biology Teacher, 1 Medical worker, 1 ICT teacher. They will be chosen by the person in charge of the project, based on previous initiatives, motivation, CV and experience in handling projects. Based on the importance and relevance of their contribution before each exchange the 2 participating teachers/country/exchange will be selected from this team. RESULTS AND IMPACTS We have assumed the publication of two IOs and 3 other intermediate products which will result from the activities performed during the exchanges. All these will be made available to larger audiences on the project website and through all the dissemination activities included in the dissemination plan. Therefore, we hope that there will be a positive, measurable impact at the level of participants (with a clear reduction of obesity rates among the target group members), of the local school communities and wider communities, at the level of the institutions involved and other related institutions, at local, regional, national and international levels. We have also initiated a sustainability plan which involves the implementation of the project results and the programme in at least 25 other schools/year in the three years following the end of the project.
The topic Healthy Lifestyle, came as a result of data collected in the 5 partner schools involved that showed that in all schools’ pupils should fight with obesity and lack of regular physical activities. We established as the main objective to raise students’ awareness of the causes and effects of obesity. To measure the actual impact of the school we proposed to decrease these rates by the end of the 2-year project. Another aim was to be in contact with other European schools to observe the situation and exchange examples of good practices. During the exchanges, students joined classes in visited schools and worked within following activities: C1 – IT Only Czech, Romanian and Turkish teams participated. As the Italian partner school was closed because of the bad weather, the participants could not fulfil the aims of the meeting. As it was extended day by day, the participants worked through workshops on English vocabulary related with eating and healthy lifestyle, healthy eating habits and healthy lifestyle. They shared information about their schools, towns and countries, enjoyed folk dances, typical music and different kinds of games often played by their peers. After that, all the project partners decided to realise the activities they could not fulfil in the C1 meeting during the following meetings. C2 - ES The host school organized lectures and workshops included sub-topics like What is obesity?/Causes/Effects on Health and social image/The current rates of Obesity. During a cooking workshop teams prepared a three course menu consisted of the local specialities according to the recipes modified into healthier way of eating. The students presented the new results (realized at the beginning of the project) of the questionnaire research of eating habits and attitude to sport and introduced others their schools, towns, and countries. Students wrote the modified recipes and the photos taken during cooking were used to create a booklet. It was offered and shared with school canteens. E-version of it was published on the blog and school websites. Creating the leaflet on DOs and DON´Ts to prevent obesity was replaced into the C3-ROmeeting. After lectures and workshops on different kinds of healthy diet and their (dis)advantages, students worked up examples of healthy menus and calculated energy values of different ways of preparations. They showed their ideas on healthy eating and lifestyle on posters that became the base of the DOs and DON´Ts brochure. Czech took the responsibility for finishing it. The brochure was published in its e-version and printed and disseminated in different occasions. The project teams did not have the opportunity to join the school canteens in Italy and Spain (they could only see serving lunch to elementary school pupils prepared outside the school), they observed, taste and evaluated the school canteen meals at the meetings in Romania and Czech. C4 – CZ SParticipants took part in workshops in which many easy-to-do exercises and games/sports were presented and experienced. Czech team asked the others to enrich the collection by performing their popular activities. The collection included games and sports that should be played in the gym or playground and games that canbe enjoyed directly in the school areas (classes, corridors) e.g. during breaks. A booklet compiled by Turkish team contains the rules and needed equipment of the best ones. We planned to create and publish 2 brochures and 3 other intermediate products. We managed to compile 2 brochures (Cookerybook, Short sport activities) and a leaflet on obesity prevention. These are available on the blog and school websites and through dissemination activities at schools. We created presentations about our countries, towns and schools, results of the questionnaire search of eating habits and attitude to sport. History of our project was assumed in a short presentation based on photos taken during the activities. These products are published in e-Twinning and blog). During the second year overweight students were discreetly approached and were offered the opportunity to fight overweight under the guidance of biology and PE teachers. Thanks to a sensitive and discreet approach, 3 – 5 volunteers were found at schools and they followed the advice and recommendations on diet and exercise. The developed programmes were successful and helped. Partner schools are considering continuing this program for the future. We can see a positive, measurable impact at the level of participants (with a clear reduction of obesity in the target group), of the local school communities and wider communities, at the level of the institutions involved and related institutions, at local, regional, national and international levels. We have also initiated a sustainability plan which involves the implementation of the project results and the programme in at least 25 other schools/year in the three following years through workshops and competitions.