Five secondary schools from Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, Slovakia and Poland are interested in developing a project specificly fostering high quality skills and civic competence in school have decided to apply for funding as a strategic partnership. They realise that young people struggle to fit into society, to find the active place as responsible citizens and to meet labour market expectations in a Europe seemingly falling apart in front of our eyes. A growing social gap, refugees crises caused by civil wars, right-wing parties winning ground in many countries convinced them to adequately adapt their school policy plans. We find that education systems have a crucial role in building the right 21st century skills and competences and strive for a dynamic combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the many and varied real-life contexts on which people need to use them. The idea of HOPE - Human Opportunities for Peace in Europe - was born. The HOPE project includes not only the key competences that relate to traditional school subjects but also cross-curricular ones that enable people to pursue learning throughout their lives, contribute to democratic societies and to succeed in today's and tomorrow's world of work with its demand for high skills combined with creativity and the ability to innovate. The concept wants to install work groups / clubs for voluntary motivated students (group size between 8 and 20 students at each school) being interested in making a change in society. They are coached by committed teachers. Beyong the actual working group, the project addresses practically the whole local school community as the wide range of project activities touches not only the lives of the HOPE students but that of many others, too. The HOPE project innovation contains 3 core pillars to make young people tackle international crises and engage themselves in European peace development: 1. Diplomatic competence: Fostering our students’ political knowledge / awareness by preparing them for MUN conferences (written guidelines / booklet) 2. Social action in society: Make students understand themselves as active potential of change in society by initiating charity projects 3. Social action in school: Become active ambassadors of peace by training our students as mediators in conflict situation of their classmates Students get the opportunity to improve their communication skills (argumentation, negotiation, public speaking), critical thinking, research, language and digital competences. They collaborate in the virtual space (TwinSpace, e-twinning site) and face-to-face in the multinational project groups created at schools as well as during model conferences imitating the UN (MUNs) with international and multilingual setting. Furthermore, they get in touch with local charity institutions and political authorities (Red Cross, Amnesty International, "Zentrum für politische Bildung", European Youth Parliament etc.). Together the schools work on a common guideline for attending and also conducting MUN conferences. The results or gaining for the individual schools: HOPE working groups ensure - political knowledge, interest and action via clubs and MUN conferences, profound debating knowhow - better integration of schools into local political and social contexts - the initiation of charity or social projects (decided on every month what to set up like for example charity run, baking cakes, refugee support actions, a human chain for the whole school or even campus or a number of schools taking place simultaneously in all 5 countries….), adapted to current issues), - MUN conference participation and potentially the set-up of an own MUN at school We are going to work with methods like role-plays of debating sessions simulating the United Nations and situational games, discussion events with (local) politicians and the school public, world café, and exhibitions. We exchange best practices and exercise them at five transnational teaching and training activity meetings in form of MUNs (Model United Nations Conferences) hosted by the partner schools in Slovakia, Poland and eventually for the first time in the country’s history in Luxembourg. These activities will enable the students to evaluate central issues of world politics from the perspective of a country which they represent as a delegate of the UN. The final meeting in Luxembourg will be dedicated to a first-time realisation of a MUN as well as to production of common results and the publishing of pedagogical material for the dissemination at school and on etwinning and other established platforms. HOPE's long-term benefits will most probably and unfortunately not be the end of the war in Syria or anywhere else at short notice. Yet, Human Opportunity for Peace in Europe implies an innovative and sustainable change in school policies that make students think as responsible peace ambassadors in their environment as well as all over Europe.
Five secondary schools from Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, Slovakia and Poland developed HOPE as a project specificly fostering high quality skills and civic competence through a strategic partnership. They had realised that young people struggle to fit into society, to find the active place as responsible citizens and to meet labour market expectations in a Europe seemingly falling apart in front of our eyes. A growing social gap, refugees crises caused by civil wars and right-wing parties winning ground in many countries convinced them to adequately adapt their school policy plans. We had found that education systems have a crucial role in building the right 21st century skills and competences and strive for a dynamic combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the many and varied real-life contexts on which people need to use them. The idea of HOPE - Human Opportunities for Peace in Europe - was born. As objectives, the HOPE project included not only the key competences that relate to traditional school subjects but also cross-curricular ones that enable people to pursue learning throughout their lives, contribute to democratic societies and to succeed in today's and tomorrow's world of work with its demand for high skills combined with creativity and the ability to innovate. Following this concept, the five schools installed students' work groups called HOPE clubs for voluntary, motivated students aged between 15-18 (in group sizes between 8 and 20 students at each school) being interested in making a change in society. The students were coached by committed teachers from different subjects such as languages, biology, history, geography, philosophy etc. The wide range of project activities addressed not only the HOPE clubs, but practically the whole local school community as described in the following: In order to make our students engage themselves in European peace development, the HOPE project carried out three core pillars at the weekly HOPE club meetings at each school: 1st pillar: We fostered our students’ political knowledge / awareness by preparing them for MUN conferences ("diplomatic competence"). We introduced and practised debating with them, produced guideline booklets and interacted with the clubs from the other HOPE schools. We worked with methods like role-plays of debating sessions simulating the United Nations and situational games, discussion events with (local) politicians and the school public, world café, and organised exhibitions for the whole school community. During the project period, apart from conducting local Mock MUNs at each school, all HOPE project schools participated in several international debating events/MUNs, of which LuxMUN served as a MUN premiere in the country: ToMUN 2017 (Warm-up) , MEC Zilina 2017 (kick-off), LuxMUN 2018 (Mock MUN practrice), ZaMUN 2018 (C1), ToMUN 2018 (C2), ZaMUN 2019 (C3), ToMUN 2019 (C4), Megalux 2019 Apart from those, some schools even participated in more MUNs and MEPs. Each of these events involved the local school's whole school community as well as other schools from abroad. 2nd pillar: The HOPE clubs promoted and initiated more social action in society. The made students understand themselves as active potential of change in society by initiating charity projects, some of which were conducted in paralel at each school (Christmas basar) and others individually. They comprised events such as fund raising (teachers' car wash, second hand basar, cake sale...) as well as "time donation" / social services at old people's homes, nurseries and animal shelters. The 3rd pillar concerned "peace action" in school by training students to become active ambassadors of mediation. Having the peace mediator project at Wittekind Gymnasium / Lübbecke and IES Miguel Catalan / Zaragoza as models, the Lycée Michel-Rodange in Luxembourg developed and implemented a group of over 20 "students patrons" in charge of their well-being of younger classes (year 7) in particular in conflict situations into our school policy plan. These peace ambassadors started with the new school year 2019-2020 at the LMRL. Summing up the project impact, it is obvious that after the HOPE project period the world still has to face crises of war - we had not expected that to be any different. However, our group of schools is proud to see that the HOPE project has brought both feasible and sustainable longterm benefits to our schools by teaching valuable skills to our students and by having been able to implement peace-enhancing structures into our schools. HOPE has inspired and taught students to think as responsible peace ambassadors in their environment as well as all over Europe. Regarding school education as a precious factor of influence in society, we are positive that such achievements can lay the fundament for change for more global peace in the future.