Nowadays the schools' main objective is to prepare the youth to pass difficult final and vocational exams. The schools also struggle for high ranking positions. Meanwhile, they have problems to meet the pedagogical needs and develop prosocial attitudes among students. Analyzing the current situation in schools - Poland, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal came to conclusion that also their students who are in the age of 15-19, have different social problems. They do not cope with bullying, aggression, e-addictions which often result in bad eating habits and lack of physical movement. In relations with their peers they cannot be assertive, defend their rights and react to any discrimination. The youth often escape into the virtual world, which makes them insensitive to the problems around them or help for others. All the negative aspects disturb proper functioning of young people, which is reflected in their school performance, self-esteem, and being active at school. The intensity, range and attitudes to the problems in partner schools are different. Therefore we started the cooperation during which we want to exchange the expert knowledge about preventing and solving the problems. Following the words said by Stephen Hawking ‘The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge” the partners decided to verify their knowledge about social problems in schools and broaden it by different solutions existing in other parts of Europe. In the project ‘The Guardians of Europe’ five schools became five ‘Guardians’ of the European values and they will share their expert knowledge about equality, healthy eating habits, cyber safety, tolerance and physical activity. The social campaigns which will be conducted together will become a bridge for their activities and will encourage prosocial attitudes among the project participants. Thanks to them the participants will also develop creativity, team work, entrepreneurship.They will learn how to cooperate with the media and will develop new IT and language competences. The climax of the international cooperation will be the international social campaign divided into two parts and the event ‘You don’t know it – get to know it, if you know it – preserve it’. The mission of ‘the guardians’ will be to encourage young people to explore and preserve the European cultural heritage for the next generations. The challange and task for the teachers will be to learn how to teach about heritage and how to use the knowledge during the different lessons. The School Corners will be created in the schools. They will be the centres for students’ dialogue and social activity where young people will work on social campaigns and report their acitivities on eTwinning platform. To achieve the objectives we will use different methods like brainstorm, SWOT and SMART analyses, the Ghant’s Graph’, workshops. Teachers as mentors and tutors of the School Corner will develop lesson plans about social issues which will be included in the prevention programs in partner schools. To reach the local community we will organize The International Festival of Social Campaigns, School Days of European Heritage and the International Social Campaign about Heritage. We will create the five figures of guardians as patrons of our campaigns: ‘The guardian of healthy eating habits, the guardian of physical activity’, the guardian of equality’, the guardian of cyber safety’ and the guardian of tolerance’. We will create „Proclamation of Guardians” a public announcement about fighting with social problems. In order to achieve the objectives of the project we will organise five student project meetings to discover the European heritage on their own and one staff training meeting which will allow the teachers to receive training and mentoring from experts to implement the technical part of the campaigns properly. The project will refresh the quality of educational activities in schools by multicultural cooperation. It will introduce a new method of social campaigns which will activate students. It will positively influence prosocial attitudes and the European quality of life. It will encourage Europeans to care about healthy eating habits, physical activity, cyber safety, equality and tolerance. The project activities will raise awareness that we need to preserve European heritage for future generations.
Today's schools mainly aim to prepare young people well for passing exams such as Matura Exam or vocational exams and fight for a high position in the rankings. Meanwhile, they increasingly struggle with the implementation of educational goals and shaping the social attitudes of students. Adolescents cannot cope with being teased, e-addictions, which often goes hand in hand with poor nutrition, lack of physical activity and manifestations of aggression. It disrupts their functioning, worsens their academic performance, self-esteem and activity at school. Following the words of S. Hawking "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge." partners decided to verify their own knowledge of social problems in schools and explore ways of solving them in different parts of Europe. ‘The Guardians of Europe’ project was a meeting of five guardians from five European schools who shared their expertise on equality, healthy eating, cybersecurity, tolerance and physical activity. Conducting social campaigns that activated pro-social attitudes of the project participants and the local community was the bridge joining their activities. The Greek school created the "Body Talks - Mind Listens" campaign on sports activity, the Italian "Be smart-eat smart" campaign on healthy eating, the Portuguese tolerance campaign "Do you remember who you were before society decided it?" "Equality - the time is now!" And the Polish campaign "Who is weak" about hate on the Internet. The participants took part in graphic workshops, creating films, met with experts, ran FB of their campaigns. The International Festival of Social Campaigns organized in Poland was an opportunity to present all the campaigns to students and teachers from other schools, parents, media and local authorities. In the first stage of the project, students conducted their social campaigns, and then randomly they exchanged the developed materials and conducted partner campaigns in their countries, giving them a new cultural context. Word, image, sound, emotions - the strength of the campaign - made young people willing to develop and conduct social campaigns targeted at their peers and the local community. Thanks to the activities and project mobility, the participants developed creativity, the ability to cooperate in an international group, entrepreneurship, learned how to cooperate with the media, and developed language and IT skills. Mobility in Spain for teachers allowed to obtain information about conducting social campaigns, it was an opportunity to exchange experiences related to solving social problems in schools. Student mobility was an opportunity to present the results of their work, they allowed for the exchange of expert knowledge. On the basis of these experiences, the "Catalog of social campaigns" was created, which may be a source of inspiration for similar activities for other schools. Teachers, as mentors and tutors of project groups, developed lesson plans on social problems that can be included in school preventive programs. The products of the project and all activities can be found in detail on the website www.theguardiansofeurope.eu The second stage of the project was to carry out a joint campaign "You don't know it - get to know!" If you know it- preserve it! " about cultural heritage, which was the highlight of the cooperation, and its success was guaranteed by the skills acquired during the first stage of the project. The "guardians" first learned and discovered their cultural heritage around, using the Etwinning platform, which became a source of information exchange, and then encouraged others to actively protect it by conducting workshops for the school and local community based on the developed plan.The BREAK TRA (sh) DITON campaign was organized, the main product of which was a spot promoting the campaign, which presented the threats to Europe's cultural heritage. As part of this campaign, local actions were taken, such as: "Pebbles-guards", art competitions, clean-up actions in the mountains and on the beach. The project refreshed the quality of educational activities in schools through multicultural cooperation and enriched teachers' resources with new ways of solving social problems. School Corners were established in schools - centers for students' dialogue and social activity, where young people can continue to work on new campaigns, exploring other social problems. Project activities introduced an interesting and activating method of social campaigns to schools. They had a positive impact on pro-social behavior and the quality of life of Europeans, encouraging them to take care of healthy eating habits, physical activity, cybersecurity, equality and tolerance. Project activities have raised awareness of the need to protect European heritage and preserve it for future generations.