Participants / Background All project partners, Berufliche Oberschule Cham (DE), 1 epal peiraia (GR), I.I.S.S. "S. Trinchese" (IT), Zespol Szkol im. Jana Kasprowicza (PL), Escola Básica e Secundária de Canelas, (PT), are schools of general education with A-level or equivalent as school leaving qualification. The students involved in the project are between 16 and 18 years old. Vandalism is a major problem at all partner schools and their respective environments. This raises the question why adolescents (the most noticeable group of offenders) tend to break the rules. Experts come up with different motives ranging from an isolated act of boredom under the influence of alcohol to criticism of social circumstances that can go along with artistic expressions (graffiti). In this context we should take into consideration what Maren Lorenz refers to as the unbroken drama of vandalism as a symptom of erosion of values and its supposedly social causes (cf. Lorenz, Maren: Vandalism as Everyday Phenomenon, p. 126). In addition, she laments that society has resigned itself to the phenomenon reluctantly (ibid.) and that comprehensive research for causes and prevention is not conducted (ibid.). Neither do the schools participating in the project know how to respond to this challenge. Goals Since teenage students seem to be prone to acts of vandalism due to their age, it is an important goal of the project schools to decrease the likelihood of their students committing them. Because acts of vandalism are performed in anonymity, the only means in line to prevent them are on an individual level education in democracy and support in developing the skill to think twice by studying the issue of vandalism closely and in a critical manner. At the same time a discussion between local influential political, social and economic leaders and the young people in the respective regions must be initiated because political and economic aspects (prevention, repression, social evils) have a considerable influence on acts on vandalism. Finally, the strategies of prevention developed in the course of the project will help to face the issue of vandalism in a more adequate manner. Methodology A core issue will be the research on the complex topic within the context of a scientific comparative international study, which will also address the offenders’ motives. A more fruitful field of study represent the questions on how society deals with vandalism since acts of vandalism would occur less frequently if they were not tolerated by various people in the know respectively sympathisers, who do not report them to the police. In order to find out about these issues of interest we will develop a complex questionnaire that will be used at the partner schools and their environments. Due to the different settings the findings will help to re-evaluate the factors of influence according to their effectiveness. The relevance of the topic vandalism will be substantiated by its documentation in the local municipalities of the partner schools: Apart from taking pictures of acts of vandalism, collecting newspaper articles and statistics of the local authorities, we will analyse strategies of prevention if such exist as well as aspects of criminal and civil law. The results will be arranged and presented at the schools and to the interested public within a travelling exhibition. In addition, the students will develop their own prevention schemes for school and public space using the method of best-practice. They will take part in a panel discussion with prominent figures in politics, economy and society exerting influence on the perception of vandalism and how society deals with it. Thus, they experience the effectiveness of their own political participation by seeing their own ideas being integrated into local prevention schemes. In cooperation with local authorities and under artistic guidance a legal setting is provided, in which adolescents can experiment with their artistic potential (graffiti) without being criminalised. Results / long-term benefits The documentation of the findings of the study will result in a travelling exhibition, which will become a permanent one after the project. By participating in the project our students should be made aware of the topic vandalism and finally less likely to commit acts of vandalism themselves. Working on the project, various schemes of prevention will be developed and consequently at school and within the municipalities, acts of vandalism can be reduced. Another core issue of the project will be a contract for awareness, which must still be lived by after the project was brought to an end because acts of vandalism on a larger scale can be at least partly put down to deficiencies in school culture. To sum up, even though vandalism might not entirely disappear, our project will do its share in reducing it by raising awareness for the issue within our society.
It is a stroke of luck that the European Union enables cooperations between schools by providing very generous financial support. With this project the Fachoberschule Cham was able to investigate the destructive rage of adolescents and young adults with our partners in Portugal, Greece, Italy and Poland at the first project meeting in Cham. In a first workphase, the students investigated specific forms of vandalism in their countries of origin. In Italy, for example, cultural monuments are often the target of vandalism, which understandably outrages locals and tourists alike. It quickly became clear to all those involved how necessary it would be to develop prevention concepts against vandalism. In Portugal, the causes and solutions for vandalism were in the foreground. The evaluation of the survey results on the basis of a jointly created questionnaire showed country-specific differences. At a panel discussion, the results of an international comparative study by representatives of politics, administration and science were discussed. The project meeting in Greece emphasized the creativity of the students of the participating countries: posters documenting country-specific forms of vandalism were presented. They are part of a travelling exhibition that will later be shown in all countries. The highlight was then a graffiti spraying action: Under the guidance of a street artist, prepared walls were allowed to be designed with spray cans. In the period between the mobilities, the participating project schools carried out various actions to sensitize the students to the phenomenon of vandalism and to show them legal ways to express their creativity. In Cham, for example, together with the graffiti artist Jonas Heigl from Regensburg, the lettering "FOSBOS" was designed in the schoolyard, which then visually enhanced the construction fence during the renovation of the vocational school center. In the follow-up to this action, the fundamental problem was addressed in a panel discussion: Is this art or damage to property? The participants from local politics and the art scene were surprisingly unanimous: Graffiti as a protest or as visually appealing art had its justification – but not everywhere. One solution can be surfaces released for spraying. The fact that the city of Cham is now providing a wall for spraying on the grounds of the Quadfeldmühle of the Cham Technical High School enabled us to conclude our project on 1 July 2021, which was severely slowed down by the corona pandemic. The graffiti artwork of FOS Cham is visible from afar and documents that European school projects can have an external impact on the public. We would like to thank you very much for this opportunity. Similar actions have also been planned and carried out in partner countries. No doubt that the corona pandemic has severely affected the implementation of the project. Initially, our project period was extended by a whole year, the two missing project meetings in Poland and Italy were made up for in August 2021. The main focus in Jelcz-Laskowice near Wroclaw was the inspection of publicly accessible graffiti and the preparation of the final report. In Martano (Italy), the long-planned travelling exhibition was finally opened. It gives a complete overview of all stages of our project. Here, too, the European added value is unmistakable: In addition, headmaster interviews were conducted to evaluate the project. The survey focused on the extent of vandalism in the participating countries, the respective prevention concepts and their implementation in the partner schools. The final conclusion of the project will be the opening of the travelling exhibition in the remaining participating countries. Thus, the interested public learns all the essentials about the 5 country meetings in Germany, Portugal, Greece, Poland and Italy. The focus is on reasons for vandalism, manifestations and preventive measures. If we have contributed to raising awareness of this socio-political issue with this project, we have achieved our goal.