rEtribUte is a Project coordinated by IES Azorín in Petrer, Spain, whose partners are ISIS D’Aronco in Gemona, Italy, Thomas-Mann Gymnasium in Berlin, Germany, and Egri Pásztorvölgyi Altalános Iskola és Gimnázium in Eger, Hungary. The coordinating school, together with the German and Hungarian schools have successfully developed an Erasmus+ project on Eurpean cultural heritage (KA229 We Always) in the past two years. The Italian school will enrich this alliance with their experience in service-learning methodology, key to our proposal. rEtribUte is justified in the context of action involving Sustainable Development Goals (Envision 2030) to reduce inequality, in particular, intergenerational (SDG 10.2) and education (SDG 4). It aims at specific goals benefitting both the educational communities involved and society. Students will benefit from the improvement of their attitudes and commitment to the reality of elderly people in different EU countries. Strengthening of their active and efficient participation in their environment in an autonomous way. Contextualization of learnings in the acquisition of key competences through complex tasks and their application through methodologies like service-learning, problem-based learning and design thinking. Cooperative work will be developed in heterogenic groups from an interdisciplinary perspective. Teachers: Improvement of methodological, linguistic, digital and teaching competence thanks to the learning of tools and success practices in other educational systems. Community: Development of synergies between schools and social institutions working in the training, assistance and leisure of elderly people, whose empowerment will be achieved through dissemination of their experience and action against the breeches that directly affect them, like the digital one. To meet these objectives, the project is designed to cover five mobilities and their interim periods of time. C1 Italy: Teachers’ meeting to settle agreements and service-learning training from the experience of the Italian school. C2 Hungary: First students’ meeting, dedicated to sounds in our lives. Resources based on testimonies and contributions revolving around music and dance will be generated using podcasts, videos and apps, in an effort to recover traditions in new formats. The elderly will benefit in the learning and use of new technologies. C3 Italy: Devoted to reflection on experiences. Changes undergone in the administration of time, activities and historical limitations due to different reasons (like gender or critical situations) will be analysed. This will produce audiovisual testimonies, timelines, infographics, etc. and the practical development of an app that will make elderly people’s lives easier. C4 Germany: Focused on places in our lives. We’ll look into their changes and share “virtual” routes significant in the history of each country. This will result in an exhibition using different new technologies, like virtual reality and QR codes, whose main visitors will be the elderly people who have collaborated in each country. C5 Spain: will have words in our lives as its main subject. Starting from testimonies given by the elders, words in disuse will be documented and associated to present reality. These words will be introduced in dynamics like micro stories or mimics and games which will be offered to elderly people in analogical and digital formats. The inclusive vocation of the project is empowered by the methodologies used: Service-learning, as a means to mobilize knowledge, abilities and values in an answer to the situation of the elderly and as a commitment to improve it. Project-based learning, as a motivational methodology, favouring participation and an authentic learning. Design thinking, in the approximation to a problematic situation, and the generation of ideas, prototypes and the products that face it. These activities and methodologies will give support to the achievement of the above mentioned objectives. Moreover, they will contribute to the training and an active and solidarious participation of students, teachers, educational communities and social entities, especially those devoted to the elderly. The result of the action will mean the improvement of coexistence and social cohesion in the environment of participant schools on a long term basis. With this aim, and in an international framework of exchange of good practices, we’ll be involved in the dissemination of generated products with a social impact, in an educational action which is the foundation of the project.
Erasmus+ rEtribUte has involved the participation of the following partners: IES Azorín de Petrer (Spain), the coordinating school, Thomas Mann Gymnasium in Berlin, and Egri Pásztorvölgyi Altalános Iskola in Eger (Hungary). Initially, ISIS D'Aronco in Gemona del Friuli (Italy) was also a part of it. However, this partner withdrew from the project during the pandemic due to various internal issues, including the relocation of project-involved teaching staff to other institutions and difficulties with students during the lockdown. The first three partners had already established a successful relationship within an association focused on European cultural heritage as a cohesive element (KA229 We Always). rEtribUte was contextualized within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) aimed at reducing inequality, particularly intergenerational (SDG 10.2) and educational (SDG 4) inequality. It aimed at specific goals that benefited both the involved educational communities (promoting multilingualism, developing key competencies, contextualizing learning, applying skills and technological tools, and methodologies such as service-learning, cooperative work from an interdisciplinary perspective, and design thinking) and society (raising awareness and preventing gaps affecting the elderly, valuing their experiences, and creating products based on them in the fields of music, experiences, places, and words). The emergence of COVID-19 led to various changes that affected the planned activities and mobilities. These had to adapt to the restrictions imposed on the movement of people and the normal conduct of teaching and learning processes in the involved schools, requiring an extension of the project's deadline, which was granted. As a result, the initially planned mobility labeled as C1 (teacher training meeting in Italy) could not take place. The initial training and coordination work of the project were carried out through video conference contacts involving the participating teachers. The C2 mobility planned in Hungary, focused on music, and the C3 mobility in Italy, dedicated to the life experiences of the elderly in the three countries, could not proceed according to the initial schedule. Instead, their objectives were developed through several video conferences among students, which served to share tasks related to the two areas. This theme was revisited in the project's first actual mobility, which took place in Petrer (Spain). There, the opportunity was taken to deepen the work on the two previously addressed areas and develop an application following the design thinking methodology. It was decided to hold this meeting in the coordinating country due to being the first in-person encounter after intense work carried out under very difficult and uncertain conditions for both students and teachers. The initial C4 mobility in Berlin became the second real in-person mobility, and its theme related to the places in our lives was maintained as initially planned. The third real mobility took place in Hungary and focused on the words of our lives, as outlined initially for the C5 mobility in the project. The number of participants in these student mobilities remained as initially planned, with students who were supposed to participate in the original C3 modality (which did not happen) redirected to other destinations. Finally, given the challenges faced by the project from its inception, the partners agreed to carry out a final mobility in Petrer (Spain) among the teaching staff. Its main objectives were to discuss the changes experienced, which were accounted for in the final report, and, recapturing the training dimension of the unsuccessful C1, address a matter of great interest to the partners: the recently acquired Erasmus accreditation by the coordinating school. The opportunities provided by this accreditation were deemed highly relevant for the continuation of relationships among partners in new future projects. Having overcome significant difficulties, the project's outcomes were considered highly positive in terms of opening up educational institutions to the urgent issue of addressing the needs of the elderly, a demographic group on the rise in the three participating countries. Additionally, the project was valuable for transmitting and valuing the experiences of the elderly as a resource enriching society as a whole. Furthermore, it offered prospects for collaboration with organizations with which schools had worked in this area throughout the project.