The project „Healthy habits, happy minds” is a strategic partnership, exchange of good practices, between schools from Macedonia, Italy, Spain and Portugal and coordinated by Romania. Within the increasing effects of bullying based on body shape and discrimination on social and economic issues, the high rate of children prone to weight problems and food borne diseases due to lack of physical activity and information about healthy and balanced lifestyles, the disparities in access to quality education between children from rural and urban areas which leads to social exclusion, risky behaviors and early school leaving, it has become imperative to raise awareness of the problem and create a preventive methodology of intervention with tools and activities centered on students' needs. This partnership focuses on the following objectives : - to improve long-term students' lifestyles, eating habits, social and active life and to provide them with key competences for a balanced life and for further learning. -To create innovative pedagogical approaches based on the exchange of good practices of the project's partners in a European school network. The project participants are teachers and students from the 5 partner schools, staff of regional centers specialized and experienced in school counseling activities. The students involved in this project will be chosen from economically and socially disadvantaged groups - families with a very low income, children with special needs, students with risky behaviors, immigrants, students whose parents work abroad. They could benefit more from this partnership by learning in a different, non formal and more active way that allows them to highlight their educational potential, thus integrating them in their school environment. The activities proposed will be student-centered and adapted to heterogeneous groups and to different age groups . They are connected to the three main areas of the project: social-emotional health, nutrition and healthy habits, physical exercise and fitness and they will ensure the participation of a large number of students. There will be two types of LEARNING-TEACHING-TRAINING activities embedded in the program: five short-term joint staff training sessions and five short-term student exchanges. The training sessions will enable the teachers and trainers to get into contact with other educational systems and the partners' working context, vision and experience on the topic of the project. The exchange of ideas, good practices and methods will materialize into an e-Book – a guide of good practices which contains a preventive methodology of intervention on healthy lifestyles which will be available to the educational community. Student exchanges will allow the pupils to interact and communicate with their peers from Europe directly and work in mixed groups in a multicultural environment. They will get acquainted with different cultures and lifestyles, new ways of coping with the same issues they share. The project’s methods and activities used during this partnership are: learning by doing, hands on learning, indoor and outdoor education, active-participatory non formal activities, counseling activities, workshops and debates. The project employs virtual collaboration spaces, peer-learning, project-based collaboration and a stimulating cross curricular approach. The performance of the project will be measured through questionnaires, observation, reports, group discussions and a comparative study at the beginning and at the end of the project. Every partner country will carry out by local and regional means the dissemination of projects' tangible and intangible results through offline channels such as local and regional newspapers, regional events, team sessions using the audio-visual materials designed during the project and through online channels such as project website, the websites of partner schools, social networks, educational platforms and sites. The outcomes of the project will be freely available in English on the project’s website and can be used in all European countries. All the activities will be shared with the families, local educational community, regional educational services. An intensive dissemination will increase the impact of the project activities on the students, teachers, the schools involved and the educational community and it will ensure the project's sustainability. The teachers will be motivated to develop new projects in a local or international context. They will use the methodology, good practices and competences acquired during the project in their portfolios of activities and in the creation of optional courses that will diversify the school offer, making it more attractive, updated and student-oriented. The school network created at the level of the partnership will serve as a basis for the creation of new common projects funded by the European Union.
PROJECT SUMMARY The project “Healthy Habits, Happy Minds” was a strategic partnership which involved 5 schools from: Romania- coordinator, Macedonia, Italy, Spain and Portugal. All 5 project partners faced problems with the negative effects of bullying based on body shape, of discrimination on social and economic issues, of high rates of children prone to weight problems and food borne diseases, of lack of interest in physical activities, of risky behaviors and early school leaving. It became imperative to raise awareness of the problem and create a common strategy of prevention and intervention with the necessary tools and activities that were relevant to the needs of the participants. The general objective of the project was to provide quality education for a healthy, balanced and active lifestyle and social inclusion through non –formal education in a safe school environment and a European context. The specific objectives were: -to create an innovative methodology of prevention and intervention in teaching healthy habits and social inclusion. -an improvement with 50% of the target students’ lifestyles, eating habits, social and active life. -trained teachers on social inclusion and non-formal education as a result of the joint training events in the European context, based on exchanges of good practice. The project activities were student-centered and needs-oriented, adapted to heterogeneous groups and different age groups. They were connected to the 3 intervention areas of the project: nutrition and healthy habits, active life and wellbeing, socio-emotional health, and they ensured the involvement of a large number of participants. Within the 32 months of implementation all the partners organized workshops, study trips, sports competitions, cooking lessons, debates, exhibitions, online videoconferences, meetings, and discussion sessions. All planned activities were carried out equal to or larger than it was assumed in the project application. The project also used a large range of methods: learning by doing, indoor and outdoor education, active-participatory non-formal education, counselling, virtual and project based collaboration. The main results of the project include: an e-book - a methodology for teaching healthy habits as an OER for teachers which contains methods, lesson plans and good practices, a handbook for students -“The ABC of healthy habits”, Newsletters, a Health Care Calendar, the project’s website, the e-Twinning project, a project survey with data about the target students’ eating habits, general well-being and bullying phenomenon , an online magazine – “Europe’s Teens in Style”, a Self- Reflection Diary . All the main project results are freely available on the project’s website, on partner schools’ websites, different online educational platforms, and social networks. After the analysis of the satisfaction questionnaires, observations, number of views, group discursions, reports and comparative surveys we can confirm that the partners achieved in full the planned activities and results. Project outcomes: While analyzing the indicators of result, we can conclude that the project helped to: -raise awareness of the importance of a healthy, balanced and active lifestyle - to reduce bad health habits. - to increase interest in outdoor and indoor activities - to enhance knowledge on social inclusion and skills for teachers - to promote collaboration between European schools in order to exchange examples of good practice. The project inspired the partner schools to continue their efforts to raise awareness and create innovative approaches regarding socio-emotional health and social inclusion by implementing in the sustainability period the prevention methodology, by creating new e-Twinning projects, by integrating the activities and the examples of good practice in the extra-curricular activities, the school curriculum and optional courses. It is worth mentioning that the project motivated many people to make a change in the system of pro-health education and to get involved in more Erasmus+ projects.