The project group believes that a new, more democratic European cultural heritage is born, based on the hope that a better future is always within reach, but it is one that requires the courage to cooperate and take initiative. The European Year of cultural heritage is a one and only chance to make our students become aware of the importance of our rich cultural past. Some partner schools wish to foster social cohesion with this project, others focus more on critical thinking and engagement, but our common motivation is to prepare our students to become global citizens, to become inclusive rather than exclusive communities. The project group consists of six schools which were chosen on the basis of their heterogeneity concerning geographical location, but also in terms of student population (students from all social backgrounds). The coordinating school is located in Germany, the partners are from Greece, Portugal, Romania, France and Italy. The students taking part in the project are 15 to 18 years old, come from different school types and work on the activities in different settings. The teachers working with them represent a large variety of subject areas and competences. The head teams of the involved schools monitor the progression of the project and ensure communication to other members of the school community. Each school also associates experts from outside the school to the project. During the project, selected students and teachers of all participating school visits the other, totaling to six mobilities throughout the 24 months, each including 5 students and 2 accompanying teachers. These mobilities follow the theme of “a journey to EUROPIA” and consist of a mixture of workshops and excursions. Where possible, students will stay with host families from the partner schools, allowing them a deeper immersion into the other cultures. Aside from these mobilities, the participants concentrate on their cultural heritage in the first year, and then deal with EUROPIA’s future in the second year. In the first year, participants conduct interviews in their home towns under the guiding mottoes of "Europe and me", "My European Dream", which will be combined to create a documentary with subtitles in all of the languages of the partners. Moreover, an artistic approach to this theme is taken when, based on Caspar David Friedrich's painting "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog", the participants include both cultural heritage and dreams of EUROPIA in one painting. Both of these results function as a foundation of a play written cooperatively and performed on the same night in all partner schools (as a "live conference"), representing the main idea of the European Union, the union within its diversity. The second year is resolutely turned towards the future: In a cooperative writing project, students from all partner schools write their common "EUROPIA", a utopia based on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals by the UN. The writing process will be conducted with the help of "storybird", a publishing platform for visual storytelling. Before getting together in international writing teams and cooperatively telling "the story of our ideal state: EUROPIA", each partner school is going to work on two to three SDGs on their own. The exact form of the in-depth work which will be undertaken, can be chosen by each group, but needs to ensure that the involved students are experts in the field they chose and are well prepared to present the main aspects in detail. This is required for the further step in which students concentrate on their work on their EUROPIA. The priorities in terms of the SDGs that the schools/groups chose can be connected to various ideas, e.g. the extension of the school garden, the partnership with a local aid group, the organisation of a jumble sale on a large scale. The results which are created throughout the project are continually shared, not only among the participants, but also in the whole schools and local communities. The results are visualized in an Erasmus+ corner in each of the participating schools and there are different special events for the project which address a larger public, including media representatives and politicians. Moreover, the project results are enrolled in local competitions. We believe that by sparking the intercultural dialogue between our students from very different cultural and socio-economic background, our project hopefully enables them to see the surplus of the European cultural heritage for their own life and future. Moreover, the project prepares our students to the requirements of the present and the future by choosing the UN sustainable development goals as the basis for our work.
Three years ago, in 2018, schools from six different countries – France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Portugal – set sail to embark on an ambitious journey to an imaginary destination called EUROPIA under the flag of Erasmus +. The project’s objective was not less ambitious: BUILDING NEW EUROPEAN DREAMS. And although the voyage was tough, we are now proud to say that we managed to stay the course and, through a joint effort of all partners, have arrived to our destination not only alive and kicking but enriched with plentiful knowledge and experience for which we are very thankful. In the context of the European Year of cultural heritage we wanted the foundations of our European Dreams to be sound. We wanted our students to see that, although they live far apart, they share a common heritage that is nonetheless filtered by their own cultural background. That is why the first – and the beginning of the second – project year were dedicated to artistic endeavors including theatre, film, fine art, photography and dance. This creative work was also fostered during the first four mobilities which enabled the participating students to express their creativity together and also to enjoy the cultural heritage of each host country. The second half of the project was geared towards finding ways of living together in a Europe that lives up to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. Various projects were developed, planned and implemented jointly by the partner schools with the aim to actively involve the entire school communities and to introduce pupils as well as teachers to aspects such as diversity, plastic pollution or vegan lifestyles on so-called "sustainability days“. We wanted to show that a different, sustainable life is possible on a small and on a larger scale. In addition, all partner countries cooperatively planned how a permanent exhibition, a creation of a sustainable room or corridor could be implemented at the respective schools. The tangible results of the project are manifold: In the first project year we created a documentary consisting of interviews with European citizens about their vision of Europe. We also created a photo exhibition that juxtaposed crucial moments of everyday life in the respective countries and that travalled through our schools. We set up an art exhibition based on Caspar David Friedrich’s "Wanderer above the sea of fog“ exposing our students‘ visions of Europe. We created an impressive dance performance in the streets of Le Mans inspired by Belgian choreographer Teresa De Keersmaeker. Last but not least, each partner school also tried their hands at creating plays that emerged from ideas about Europia expressed during a workshop in our first mobility in Hamburg. In the second and third project year, besides the spaces in our schools mentioned above that should help visualise our commitment to a sustainable environment, two significant final products were created: Our EUROPIA book, which comprehensively presents the individual activities during our Erasmus+ project and should serve as a kind of best-practice guideline for other schools, and a national as well as European manifest, depicting our commitment to living more sustainably, both on a personal level as well as involving our entire schools and communities. These manifests as well as other objects were then put into a time capsule to be opened in 50 years. The tangible results should not cover up the non-tangible ones for it is the process that led to these results that produced the most fruitful moments: When the participants of our mobilities danced together spontaneously in the school playground, when they cooked an Italian dish together online, when they composed and sang the EUROPIA anthem together, when they shared their cultural heritage with pride and enthusiasm, when they discussed what a utopian/dystopian Europe would look like for them, when they crafted traditional pottery together, we got closer to our vision of EUROPIA than any documentary can ever show. As far as the longer-term benefits are concerned, we hope to have raised awareness that EUROPIA is no utopia anymore: We have learned that by working collaboratively and creatively we can inspire each other and that our ideas on a small scale can lead to encouraging results on a big one. Sustainability has been our main goal from the start: Although our project is over, it will be visible for years to come: We have created "sustainable" spaces and rituals in our schools that will stand the test of time and be enhanced continuously. We have created a solid network between schools, teachers and students. We have established links to local politicians and artists. We have created analogue and digital media (the EUROPIA book, the website https://europia.2gymagni.gr, a time capsule in each school, etc.) to share our work and inspire others. More than ever, we believe that "a new, more democratic European cultural heritage is born".