The project background will be shaped upon the respect of values which constitute the foundations of sportsmanship, especially now that teenagers are constantly threatened by the culture of materialism which pushes them to the goal of getting what they want without any struggle or effort.Our project is supported by a variety of school profiles: from northern to central to southern Europe with an experienced coordinator of the project. Partner schools include all types of secondary schools from very different social-cultural backgrounds and all of them are implementing multiple programmes of innovative methodologies. The project participants will be mostly 14 to 19-year-old students.The project's main objective is to motivate youngsters to adopt a healthy lifestyle by encouraging them to experience the benefits of practising sport not only as an alternative and attractive way of spending their free time, but also as a philosophy for life .Our goals are to motivate them to practise any type of physical activity, to broaden their knowledge of human reality through team-building and self-knowledge, to nourish their minds thanks to a healthy lifestyle, to learn about alternative ways of practising sports (even in the form of old or traditional games), to raise their awareness that sport is not only for “perfect” bodies, to make them learn that gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, creed or disabilities are not obstacles for sport or life. Also, making teenagers aware of the threats of modern society and showing them the possible solutions and the ways to be helped is one of our objectives. Our project will enable students to understand that sport participation leads to improved levels of physical health, mental wellbeing and quality of life as well as of self-confidence and self-esteem. In addition, it will help them to feel at ease with themselves in creating ties with their peers and adults so as to let them gain independence out of their comfort zone .Thanks to the project, students will improve their knowledge of the English language and the usage of the IT tools as they both will be regarded as the “verbal” and “computerised” lingua francas of the project itself . Therefore, the “methologies” will be interactive and cooperative using flipped classrooms, group work, project work under a communicative approach with the teachers to guide them. “Learning by doing” will be our motto. The project activities will include the production in English of multimedia works related to the mobilities ,such as video clips, tutorials, handbooks, smartphone applications, presentations, but also workshops, physical activities and cultural excursions, which will strengthen all learning competences. School websites, the project website , social networks and e-mails will be the main ways for effective communication among students and teachers. The results of our project in our students will be observed in the substantial change in their way of thinking and perceiving themselves and their role in the modern world. As we see it, the interpersonal contact especially before, during and after the mobilities will be the key to success: the project aims at changing the mentality of young people and making them conscious that all these principles learned will surely have to be extended to their families, friends and their own environment.They will be encouraged to change their lifestyles and be supported to understand that physical activity can make a substantial contribution to anyone’s well-being and social inclusion is crucial in every community. Besides, sport implies a positive impact of the project on the life of any human being no matter their physical or mental condition. There will also be an increase in the cooperation with the institutions promoting pro-health attitudes and sport centres since this project will enable the partner schools to work cooperatively with local institutions. European funds will allow us to work on the potential benefits of the project ,such as the realisation of pro-health issues, which will be continued on by the partners after the project finishes. All the people involved in the project will be encouraged to produce new materials available for the whole school, other schools and the whole community. All these products will be disseminated on the schools' websites, on the project website, the Project Results Platform ,social networks and on conventional media. Last but not least, teachers will enormously benefit from this project because they will master the English language, IT competences, social issues and will be able to act as advisors, instructors and even learners thanks to it.To summarize, all the participants will understand what an active and healthy life is like , how it can be improved and how they can contribute to a sporting way of living, where fair play, respect and effort should be the virtues to care for the coming generations.
Our project has been supported by a variety of school profiles lacking the Northern perspective as the Finnish partner withdrew from the project . So all the partners have contributed in carrying out the project tasks from different socio-cultural backgrounds with the same idea in mind of encouraging young generations to consider sport not only as an attractive way of spending their free time but as a philosophy for life . The project has aimed at motivating students and teachers to practise any type of physical activity including more traditional games belonging to older generations , to broaden their horizons , their self-knowledge , to nourish their minds , to demolish barriers and to consider that inclusion is an opportunity to overcome gender , sexual identity , ethnicity obstacles .The project has contributed in moving students out of their comfort zone which , after three years of pandemic , had become stricter and narrower . The project has been developed in a pre-mobility phase in which students and teachers have created plenty of multimedia products in English improving their knowledge of the English language and IT tools . These products have been presented during the mobilities , that together with seminars , workshops , debates , physical activities , cultural excursions have contributed to the participants’ growth . Then there has been a post-mobility phase where all the participants have disseminated through the school websites , the project website , the social networks , the local meetings , the results of the mobilities . All these phases have contributed to the success of the project : the interpersonal contact created among the participants to the mobilities had been extended to the families , friends , local community , school community . This feeling could not have been created in other ways , there have been binding bonds among the participants that have been reinforced with private visits after the mobilities . True friendships have been created by students and teachers that go further the lenght of the project and express the meaning of a European feeling that overpasses the country borders .They have all been encouraged to change their lifestyles and consider that social inclusion was crucial in this wider community created thanks to this project . Thanks to the project a new way of living , mental wellbeing , more appropriate lifestyles , self-knowledge , team-building , will be the correct answers to new physical and mental conditions . The project has allowed an increase in the cooperation with the institutions and sport-centres and has promoted the realisation of pro-health issues which will be continued on by all the participants to the project after the project has been finished . All the participants have enourmously benefited from this project because they have mastered the English language , IT tools , social issues of cooperation and inclusion , have improved mental and physical wellbeing and have reinforced the ideas that fair play, respect , effort are crucial to a correct way of living . As for the results of the project in the long term , we will use them as a source of inspiration in our work, as didactic materials for our lessons. Furthermore some of the partners have got or intend to get Erasmus+ Accreditation in the School education domain. We will use the network we created in order to implement mobilities under accreditation. Moreover, based on the relationships we have developed in the last three years between project partners, we intend to look for further collaboration and communication opportunities in the education field. Besides the final products, the partner schools designed and created lots of other materials like videos, presentations, memory pages, photo albums, which offered multiple opportunities for brainstorming, teamwork, research, data collection, analysis and interpretation, collaborative learning, feedback provision. Even beyond that, a number of non tangible achievements were recorded:our students and all those directly and indirectly related to the project were given ample opportunity to develop personally, physically and socially through physical and mental engagement and guidance. They came to the realisation that an active life with healthy eating habits and a deep interest in their holistic wellbeing is probably the only way to happiness and fulfilment, whereas gender, racial, physical, social, economic or other barriers can only block their way to wellness.Along with this, the students and teachers involved honed their social skills, their understanding of other cultures, developed their negotiation, ICT and language skills and on the whole, better realised what it means to actively be a European citizen.