The project is considering diversity as a chance to reunite European countries since today many of them are facing changes concerning cultural and political challenges which can and already have resulted into leaving the EU and will be coordinated by the Berufskolleg für Technik und Gestaltung in Germany, a vocational school providing full-time vocational training on levels EQ 2 to 4 and part-time education for students in apprenticeships. Vocational subjects include mechanical, electrical engineering, IT ,construction, graphics/design and media design. This project is following another KA2 project concerning the UN 2030 Sustainability goals that also has been coordinated by Berufskolleg für Technik und Gestaltung. The other participating organisations are Fundacion Instituto Técnico Industrial in Spain, who has been a partner in the previous project and Vallentuna Gymnasium in Sweden and IISS C. Battisti in Italy. The Spanish school is an integral centre for vocational training which is placed in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos). Its activities are based around the three subsystems of Professional Training, that is to say, Initial Training (Formative cycles ofMiddle and Advanced Grade Training), Continued (Further) Training (for active employees and tailor made for companies) and Occupational Training. The students in Sweden study in several different programs such as Economics and Social Science preparing students for future university studies as well as vocational programs such as Trade and Administration, Building and Construction, Vehicle Engineering as well as Childcare and Leisure. The Italian school is composed of a main plexus and a secondary plexus. The institute includes various addresses: - Technician for accountants - Professional school for trade; Agriculture, Surveyors and Artistic high school. There will be five short term meetings including teachers as well as students. Every meeting will last for five workshop days plus two days for travelling. Each workshop will be hosted by a different institution and will focus on another aspect of the EU Sustainability Goals 2030: 5 (gender equality), 10 (reduced inequalities), 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions), 17 (partnerships for the goals). Each country will host one workshop focusing on one topic: Germany (goal 17): The European Union: strong partnerships for sustainable Development; Spain (Goal 5): Male, female, diverse: Gender Equality; Sweden (goal 10): Living in the EU: reduced inequalities and no poverty; Italy (goal 16) United in democracy, equal rights promoting diversity: Peace, justice and strong institutions; Germany (final conference on all goals and workshops): International conference on project results. The workshops are supposed to provide an insight into different ways that schools deal with diversity and support it on the basis of a democratic understanding within Europe aiming at intercultural understanding,equality, becoming active citizens, learning about social responsibility and an understanding of the European Union. This way we will meet the project’s main objective: activating students to become active participating citizens who believe in themselves and who can actively play a role in society, not only on a regional but also international level. The outcome of this project, a concept of teaching diversity on the basis of the UN sustainability agenda, which will also be a follow-up of the last KA2 project on these goals, will show the results of the workshops in which students will work on the material in international teams, talk to each other in English and improve their intercultural competencies due to giving feedback to each other. There will also be an international conference taking place during the final workshop which is supposed to function as the students’ product of the project. There will be presentations to all participants and, if possible, political representatives , who we intend to invite. The presentations and outcomes will be used to work on an ebook that will be presented in the journal on eTwinning and could be added to the website students will prepare within the last project "Sustainability Empowered by Young Europeans" in April 2020. At the end of the project the team ofcoordinators will put together a reader on teaching diversity including lesson plans and material to work on, which can be used by other schools and will be uploaded in the project's corresponding twinspace Journal.
The targeted goal of European countries to grow together, especially concerning forming connection between students on an intercultural level as well as achieving a stronger sensibility regarding the necessity to create and keep sustainability upright with regard to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 numbers 5 (gender equality), 10 (reduced inequalities), 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and 17(partnerships for the goals) has been achieved. This became visible by the high amount of motivation within all participants and could also be witnessed participants spreading their experiences enthusiastically among their peers after they returned home. The topics Human Rights, The Structure and Function of EU-Parliament as well as Stereoptypes and their contribution to keeping unequal treatment upright had been discussed, sometimes in a humorous way, and presented in several working phases. The same counts for the comparison of the participating countries' constitutions and legislation. Here, the participants worked on democratic exceptions and similarities. After that the results of this work phase were compared with still existing problems of unequal treatment for example the differing working conditions for women and men. This motivated the students to develop concepts for solving this problem and resulted in the participants' suggestion for a law that should support women and men more when taking paternal leave and to normalize that fathers should take the same amount of time for parental leave as their partners without being frowned apon. Personal experiences regarding (social) inequality and poverty presented by a former student and a local politician motivated the students to exchange their own experiences concerning that topic. Due to that interaction, the participants realized that, despite living in different countries and having differing cultural roots and heritances, they all had similar experiences regarding diversity, inequality and poverty. This formed an emotional bond between the students. The international conference during which all participants reflected all activities and contents of the project and made suggestions for improving and or changing activities and contents for a follow-up project met the aimed at goal of evaluating all workshops and was used to start planning a follow-up project. It also functioned as starting meeting to create a curriculum with practical examples for planning lessons concerning the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030.