CONTEXT Social responsibility is quite a challenging attitude to be developed, since children normally have the tendency to be rather self-absorbed. Their normally feel that world revolves around them, as do their purposes and their needs. Since this attitude is, psychologically speaking, characteristic to their age, they could not really be blamed for it. It becomes thus even more necessary for us to try to address their lack of involvement because it will probably not come from them. Teaching social responsibility implies not only helping children become more conscious of the world around them, but also making them better understand themselves and people around them. If this is achieved, schools will evolve and become a place in which mutual support and inclusion are not an exception, but rather the norm. First, we have to identify groups with problems not only in our communities, but also in our schools. Second, we will try change things and make a difference in schools and communities as well. This partnership has therefore been initiated. We decided to join our efforts and to share our experiences in order to help our students better understand themselves and others. Our purpose is to survey and monitor the importance of social responsibility, of the projects initiated in each school and of the manner they involve students, as well as the manner these projects are managed and organized in the European countries involved in the project. Our purpose is to analyze and share with each other the set of good practices in each school. OBJECTIVES The benefits that will be obtained through volunteering are numerous and they will become the objectives of the project alongside the objectives stemming directly from the international dimension inherent to an Erasmus+ project. The most important benefits include: - to increase and improve students’ sense of community, as well as to reduce copying antisocial behaviour. - to develop self-esteem, positive civic behaviour and social engagement - to develop students’ own sense of responsibility for the community they belong to - to boost attitudes of respect, tolerance and non-discrimination - to boost cultural awareness and intercultural competence - to improve communication, critical thinking and time management skills - to improve language skills PARTICIPANTS The purpose of the project is to develop students’ civic responsibility. The target group of the project includes 12-14 years old students, girls and boys, some of them coming from a disadvantaged background (immigrants, migrants, ethnic minorities, learning disorders, social challenges, and physical disabilities). 100 students will be involved directly in the short-term student exchanges and they will be accompanied by 40 teachers. MAIN ACTIVITIES There are 5 short-term student exchanges in the project. Every exchange is structured around 3 main aspects: a brief presentation of specific social challenges in each local community, a presentation of the volunteering project selected in the school, the initiation and implementation of the selected volunteering project with the visiting students. C1 is held in Slovakia, C2 in Romania, C3 in Poland, C4 in Turkey and C5 in Macedonia. IMPACT It is expected that all partner schools will benefit from the activities in the project in the long run. First, the accompanying teachers will become resource people in the project. They will closely look into the best practices in every host school when it comes to: classroom and school organization, use of technology, teaching methods employed, staff management and various aspects of extracurricular projects.Teachers will also pay attention to the relationship between school staff and parents. Teachers accompanying students will disseminate this information to their colleagues after they return from the mobility. Consequently, teachers will enrich their experience and will have examples of best practices, and will eventually apply the best and most appropriate ones in their own school. RESULTS The tangible results of the project include: - initial and final questionnaires on the degree of students’ involvement in volunteering projects (which will be applied at the beginning and at the end of the project), volunteering - self-assessment forms that the students will fill in order to analyze their degree of awareness of local social problems - presentations of partner institutions, of the city and the country of origin - presentations of the volunteering projects in every school which are implemented collaboratively by the 5 partner schools during the short-term student exchange, as well as students’ collaborative work results during them - reports on the short-term student exchanges written by the host school - evaluation instruments applied on participating schools - project evaluation documents - the impact report written at the end of the project - other dissemination materials – posters, brochures, flyers
Social responsibility is our attitude towards society that needs to be developed. Teaching social responsibility means not only helping children to become more aware of the world around them, but also to better understand themselves and the people around them. The project has helped us to get on a path where mutual support and inclusion are not the exception, but rather the norm. In the project, we tried to identify groups with problems not only in our communities, but also in our schools. Last but not least, we tried to start implementing steps that can be used to achieve a change in the perception of the part of society that relies on the help of others. With this project, we have combined our efforts and shared our experiences to help our students better understand themselves and others. Our aim was to examine and monitor the importance of social responsibility, the projects initiated in each school and the way in which they involve students, as well as the way in which these projects are managed and organized in the European countries involved in the project. Our goal was to analyze and share a set of best practices in each school and community in which the schools are located. GOALS The project Cultivating Social Responsibility was focused on building the relationship of project participants to specific inclusive groups of society. We can state that the goals of the project were fulfilled thanks to the active involvement of the participants in the project and their interest in what is happening in the society in which they live. The main goal was to increase students' sense of community and develop self-esteem, positive civic behavior and social commitment. The project also succeeded in fulfilling another goal - to develop students' own sense of responsibility for the community to which they belong. Thanks to participation in the project, students are able to support attitudes of respect, tolerance and non-discrimination, they are interested in groups that need help. The project greatly raised cultural awareness and contributed to improving pupils' communication and language skills and to improving the critical thinking and time management that are currently a necessity. ACTIVITIES In the project, we implemented 3 short-term student exchanges. Each exchange was structured around three main aspects: a brief presentation of specific social challenges in each local community, a presentation of a volunteer project selected at the school, the initiation and implementation of a selected volunteer project. In addition to these aspects, in each educational activity we have developed the social awareness of pupils in relation to their peers who belong to a socially disadvantaged group, either because of the environment from which they come or because of their health disadvantage. Another two short-term student exchanges were replaced by virtual activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We adjusted them thematically to reflect current issues related to the impact of COVID-19 in families, society and school. The activities were of a social and educational nature. THE RESULTS The tangible results of the project include questionnaires on the degree of student involvement in volunteering projects, self-evaluation forms that students fill out to analyze their awareness of local social issues, presentations of partner institutions, cities and countries of origin, presentations of volunteering projects at each school, dissemination materials - posters, banners and the like. In addition to these tangible materials, the project brought changes in the perception of society among the participating students by raising their awareness of some social issues, improving their ability to solve these problems, as well as improving communication and team skills. LONG - TERM PROJECT CONTRIBUTION The Cultivating Social Responsibility project offered all partner schools guidance on the possibilities of inclusion of disadvantaged groups in society, which brought long-term benefits. Accompanying teachers have become the main bearers of this mission in schools. It is from them that the initial impulse for the implementation of activities in schools, in which students and their parents are involved, comes out. Inspired by other schools involved in the project, they brought to their environment best practices for organizing extracurricular initiatives and projects. They disseminated the information obtained in the project among their colleagues in their work teams, thus contributing to the dissemination of the project and to the application of some of the acquired procedures in their school. Thanks to this knowledge, partner schools become more involved in volunteer and charitable activities and initiate many of these activities themselves.