The H.E.A.L. (Health Education And Learning) Erasmus+ project derived mostly by the need of the applicant school to address Early School Leaving, as a minority school with Roma students. However, the other partner schools also face extreme social exclusion problems, due to poverty, migration and refugee, issues inherent into their social environment and location. We chose Health Education as a means to address these problems, because it deals with psychological well-being, malnutrition, obesity, dependencies etc. This is the only way to establish a secure and pleasant environment at school and to shield our students against every difficulty. So, after a thorough analysis we concluded at the following objectives: 1. To introduce innovative methods like Project Based Learning (PBL), and "Life Skills" Program. 2. To train teachers with in-field-application 3. To confront health issues caused by poverty, malnutrition, dependencies etc., 4. To prevent social exclusion and enhance social cohesion 5. To address foreign language inadequacies. These 5 main goals are linked directly with the following predefined Erasmus+ axes: SCHOOL EDUCATION: Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage. HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion SCHOOL EDUCATION: Promoting the acquisition of skills and competences This project will directly involve around 400 teachers and 4000 students which face different kind of social inclusion problems. The most deprived are located in Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania, while students in Turkey, Italy and Poland also face problems of integration due to migration and refugee situations. In order to achieve our objectives, we designed 7 sub-projects which will be carried out on the basis of Project Based Learning. These projects will involve teachers and pupils for roughly a 3-month period each and they can be considered both as "Leanring Teaching Training Activities" and "Short-term joint staff training events", exploiting double benefit at the same cost. The project titles and the countries responsible for each are the following: 1. Knowing my partners (Bulgaria) 2. Health as a cultural and social good (Greece) 3. Interpersonal relationships (Turkey) 4. Dependencies (Italy) 5. Natural Life, Exercise and Healthy Lifestyle (Lithuania) 6. Healthy diet, Health and Consumption (Poland) 7. Social emotional development, self-confidence - skill development (Bulgaria) Methodologically, the activities were adapted so that they every one can perform according to their ability, while in the case of students with financial difficulties we will provide adequate resources, so that they do not feel excluded from the various activities. All tasks have been equally delegated to the members in advance, while cooperation is based on the notion of friendship, unreserved acceptance of cultural differences and constant communication through social media and educational platforms like e-Twinning. The results of the H.E.A.L. project will be evaluated with a quality assessment which will be an ongoing procedure. It is going to be implemented not only by the participating schools but in cooperation with community organizations and institutions. The main beneficiaries will be the students, who beyond the "per se" acquisition of certain knowledge in fields as Math, Science, Literature etc, are also going to improve their foreign language ability, their knowledge about Health subjects and other countries and their cultural heritage. Also, the teachers will learn new methods of teaching and other educational systems, improve their English and to learn how to implement Erasmus projects. Then, the student's parents are going to improve their parental skills, learning about how to take better care of their children and also coming in touch whith the common European heritage. Lastly, local communities are going to be heavily involved by local press, tv and radio programs and get an open mind on relevant subjects. In the long term, participants are expected to raise their awareness about healthy lifestyle (nutrition, physical activity, etc) and will be able to confront with psychological issues like depression and self-confidence as they grow up. Teaching material will be available for future use, while using the Project method will enable students to help one another, giving them independence both in implementation and assessment phases. They will learn how to cooperate and to take responsibility for the results of the work of whole group. We seek to help our students to explore their potential and skills, but also work in an international team using a foreign language. Overall, our main goal is to "heal", as much as possible, the wounds imposed by poverty and social exclusion, as for most of our students this will perhaps be a "once in a life time" opportunity to meet different cultures and ways of living, to establish healthy lifestyles and, above all, to feel like real European citizens.
***General**** The H.E.A.L. (Health Education And Learning) Erasmus+ project derived mostly by the need of the applicant school to address Early School Leaving, as a minority school with Roma students. However, the other partner schools also face extreme social exclusion problems, due to poverty, migration and refugee, issues inherent into their social environment and location. We chose Health Education as a means to address these problems, because it deals with psychological well-being, malnutrition, obesity, dependencies etc. We thought that this was the only way to establish a secure and pleasant environment at school and to shield our students against every difficulty. So, after a thorough analysis we concluded at the following objectives: 1. To introduce innovative methods like Project Based Learning (PBL) 2. To train teachers with in-field-application 3. To confront health issues caused by poverty, malnutrition, dependencies etc., 4. To prevent social exclusion and enhance social cohesion 5. To address foreign language inadequacies. These 5 main goals were linked directly with the following predefined Erasmus+ axes: SCHOOL EDUCATION: Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage. HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion SCHOOL EDUCATION: Promoting the acquisition of skills and competences This project involved around 400 teachers and 4000 students which were facing different kind of social inclusion problems. The most deprived were located in Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania, while students in Turkey, Italy and Poland also faced problems of integration due to migration and refugee situations. In order to achieve our objectives, we designed 7 sub-projects to be carried out on the basis of Project Based Learning. These projects involved teachers and pupils for roughly a 3-month period each. The project titles and the countries responsible for each were the following: 1. Knowing my partners (Bulgaria) 2. Health as a cultural and social good (Greece) 3. Interpersonal relationships (Turkey) 4. Dependencies (Italy) 5. Natural Life, Exercise and Healthy Lifestyle (Lithuania) 6. Healthy diet, Health and Consumption (Poland) 7. Social emotional development, self-confidence - skill development (Bulgaria) ***Covid19 impact*** Like all aspects of social life on the European continent, the HEAL program was severely affected by the outbreak of the new coronavirus, as well. As a result, the last two sub-projects, namely "Healthy Eating, Health and Consumption" in Poland and "Social emotional development, self-confidence - skill development" in Bulgaria, could not be implemented through physical mobility. Instead, the children and the educators decided to join forces and they created a book with traditional recipes which was pint in paper and distributed to our schools via classic mail. In this way the hours of our involuntary confinement at home became hours of creation and action. The children asked their parents, experimented and decided which recipes best represent the traditions and food culture of their country Also, in order not to lose momentum, online lessons were held, as well as two seminars according to the originally planned titles, so that the teachers do not lag behind in their further training. ***Evaluation and results**** Generally, all tasks had been equally delegated to the members in advance, while cooperation was based on the notion of friendship, unreserved acceptance of cultural differences and constant communication through social media and educational platforms like e-Twinning. The results of the H.E.A.L. project were evaluated with both quality and quantitive quality assessments on an ongoing basis. The main beneficiaries were the students, who beyond the "per se" acquisition of certain knowledge in fields as Math, Science, Literature etc, also improved their foreign language skills, their knowledge about Health subjects and other countries and their cultural heritage. Also, the teachers made touch with new methods of teaching and other educational systems, they improved their English and learned how to implement Erasmus projects. Then, the student's parents improved their parental skills, learning about how to take better care of their children and also coming in touch with the common European heritage. Lastly, local communities were involved by local press, tv and radio programs. Participants were able to raise their awareness about healthy lifestyle (nutrition, physical activity, etc) and to confront with psychological issues like depression and self-confidence. Teaching material was produced and is available in different platforms for future use, while the use of the Project method enabled students to help one another, giving them independence both in implementation and assessment phases. They learned how to cooperate and how to take responsibility for the results of the work of whole group.