"European Menu" is a partnership between IPSEOA (Professional Institute for Food and Wine and Hospitality Services), based in Erice-Trapani in Italy, the Turisticko-ugostiteljska skola Antona Stifanica institute in Porec in Croatia, and the Instituto Enseñanza Secundaria La Rosaleda of Malaga in Spain. The schools involved are all professional hospitality institutes with considerable experience in Erasmus + projects and have given life to this partnership, all sharing the following needs/priorities: - Development of relevant and high quality skills and competences - Developing institutional partnerships supporting the set up and implementation of an internationalisation strategy of VET learners and apprentices The project consists in the organization and realization of a Food Festival in our medieval town - Erice to discover all the cultural and culinary heritage of the countries involved in the project. Through the stands set up in the city, the Festival will offer a culinary journey with the opportunity to taste the specialties typical of each partner country where the students, wearing traditional costumes, will present the tourist sites, the main writers and artists of the cities of origin and territory of each partner country. To carry out the project and organize the final event, there will be 2 staff meetings (the first in Croatia, and the final one in Spain, attended by a team composed of 4 teachers) and 3 mobilities of 6 days (firstly, 10 students and 4 Italian and Croatian teachers will go to Spain; secondly, 10 students and 4 teachers from Italy and Spain will travel to Croatia; lastly,10 students and 4 teachers from Croatia and Spain will travel to Italy). There will be combined learning and training activities in order to achieve the objectives set: - to enable students and teachers to discover and learn new teaching/learning strategies; - to get the chance to experience new methods and professional techniques related to gastronomic and tourism industy; - to enhance and promote the area's assets ; - to strengthen the transversal skills according to their field of study; - to improve their intercultural and linguistic skills, since English will be the vehicular language of the project; - to encourage students to continue their studies abroad, to undertake highly specialised training, find a job that meets the specific professional profile, or undertake their own entrepreneurial/managerial activity; - to enhance social inclusion, offering equal opportunities for mobility. The partnership offers a new and stimulating environment in which students will put their skills and knowledge into practice in a different setting and will be able to analyze the similarities and differences between Italian tourism industry and partner countries. The main activities of the project will be: The main activities undertaken during the project will be: - visiting some local food and wine companies (cellars, food companies ...) - workshop at school to learn how to prepare the typical local dishes recipes - visiting and discover the region of each country - organizing and realizing the Food Festival in our medieval town - Erice to discover all the cultural and culinary heritage of the countries involved in the project. Partners will communicate via email, Facebook page, Skype and the most common fast messaging applications (whatapp, messanger ...) for a faster and easier communication and through eTwinning to communicate, collaborate, share materials during the different phases of preparation, implementation and follow-up of our project. Social netwkorks will also be used to share and make the results of our project as visible as possible. The project will have an impact on different levels (local, regional, national and international) bringing cultural changes within the different schools that take part in the project. Thanks to a qualified plan of dissemination, the benefits will be extended in the long term, after the project's end.
The "European Menu" project, as part of the Erasmus + projects, is a partnership aimed at cooperation and exchange of good practices between partner schools. It was initially planned to involve three institutes: the "Ignazio and Vincenzo Florio" Hospitality Institute in Erice in Italy, the Turisticko-Ugostiteljska Skola Antona Stifanica Institute in Porec in Croatia and the Enseñanza Secundaria La Rosaleda Institute in Malaga in Spain, but it was actually carried out between the Erice Institute in Italy and the Malaga Institute in Spain, as the Croatian school withdrew from the project at an early stage. The schools involved are vocational hospitality institutes with considerable experience in Erasmus + projects sharing the same needs and priorities: - Developing relevant and high quality skills and competences. - Developing institutional partnerships to support the establishment and implementation of an internationalization strategy in VET. The project consisted in organizing and carrying out a Food Festival in the medieval town of Erice to discover the cultural and culinary diversities and similarities of the partner countries and to enrich teaching techniques and methodologies, but due to the Covid 19 pandemic and despite the requested and obtained extension of the project up to 36 months (ending on 31st August 2020) it was not possible to carry out the last two mobilities, including the final event. To implement the project, a kick-off meeting between coordinators in Spain and two physical mobilities with students were organized (in the first 10 students and 4 Italian teachers went to Spain and in the second 10 students and 4 Spanish teachers came to Italy) to carry out learning and training activities in order to achieve the set objectives: - enabling students and teachers to discover and learn new teaching / learning strategies; - experiencing new methods and professional techniques in food, wine and hotel management in the tourism industry; - enhancing and promoting the resources of the local area; - strengthening the soft skills; - improving intercultural and linguistic skills (target language of the project: English); - encouraging students to undertake study, training and specialization courses ,also abroad, to enrich their professional profile or start their own business; - promoting social inclusion giving equal opportunities to everyone. The partnership offered a new and stimulating environment in which students put their skills and knowledge into practice by analyzing the similarities and differences in educational, cultural and professional contexts of the two countries involved. The partners met themselves through emails, social media and common fast messaging applications to communicate, collaborate, share materials during the different stages of preparation, implementation and follow-up of the project. In particular, a website and a dedicated Instagram page, entitled "European Menu", were created in order to disseminate and share the outputs of the project. During the project many activities were carried out: - Workshops in the school labs to present local dishes, wines and typical recipes in order to compare the different ingredients, techniques and methodological approaches. - Guided tours in the main heritage sites, organized by the students of the Hospitality and Tourism department. - Video-recipe recordings to share with the partners. At the end of the project, a final online meeting with teachers was organized to share impressions, comments, ideas and results obtained. It was agreed that the objectives outlined have been fully achieved and represent a good basis for obtaining long-term benefits. In fact, the students had the opportunity: - to meet with other young Europeans, - to improve their linguistic, intercultural and professional skills, - to engage in learning by doing activities. Having worked on diversified activities and in different contexts, they have acquired greater awareness of their potential and will be able to develop new and multipurpose skills that will be important for employability and social mobility, also thinking about building a future in the European direction.