CCV(Culture Covers Values) is an International project to be carried out under the key Action 2 (School Exchange Partnerships) of Erasmus+ programme. CCV, consisting of 5 partner schools from Latvia (the leading partner), Turkey, Portugal, Croatia, and North Macedonia, aims at creating better citizens of future by transfering the cultural elements fostering the INTERCULTURAL VALUES OF EUROPE from nation to nation. We have decided to carry out CCV because in partner schools and countries as in all around Europe, the Values Education is a popular topic in the environment where people have been losing their values, being isolated, self-centered, cruel, intolerant and the violence, cruelty, loneliness ...etc are increasing rapidly. That's why, many countries have been performing acts to transmit the Intercultural Values to new generations. We also wanted to take action on a social matter as responsible people. The project idea has firstly risen in social media and the eTwinning platform, where the Turkish and the Portuguese partner started a project on the eTwinning with the same title (https://live.etwinning.net/projects/project/215292). Then, other partners joined them and decided to carry our this project under the Erasmus+ programme to make its effects wider. During CCV, students will firstly search on their cultural elements having a value at the back side, then, they will transfer those cultural elements to other students from the partner countries by using digital materials, creating videos, acting out, via competitions, etc.. Thanks to CCV, they will have lots of different gains such as; being aware of their social norms, being aware of customs and traditions in partner countries, understanding and being aware of the importance of values losing their impact day by day neccessary for a better future, being socially active and responsible citizens, making new friends, experiencing the taste of productivity, practising/improving their ICT and language skills, understanding the policy, targets, legal bodies of the EU. During the implementation of CCV, students and teachers from partner countries will travel to each other during LTTAs. In each activity, 5 students and 2 teachers as accompanying persons will travel and carry out the Project activities. CCV consists of activities in a wide range that besides the ones to be performed during LTTAs, partners will also perform lots of different activities, such as "Short Movie Competition", "Photography Competition", "Snapword Competition", etc. Improving participants' ICT usage skills, citizenship, and personal qualities are other key points of CCV that participants will use and learn how to use ICT in a true way by creating many materials digitally like presentations, recorded videos, interviews, etc. Also, representing their country and schools will make them gain self-confidence, be active citizens. The target group of CCV are the students aged between 14-19 called as upper secondary students. We have chosen them as a target group because that age group is at the adolescent period during which they gain and form their personal characteristics. We believe that if they gain the expected personal and citizenship qualities at that age, they will be better citizens and persons in the future. While implementing our project, as our methodology, we will mostly use searching, observing, recording, demonstrating, acting out and lots of different assessment tools. Good communication, good cooperation, planning and a strong sound management will be the key factors that will lead us to reach success. In long term, we hope; to create better citizens and human beings of future, to create the atmosphere firstly in partner schools then in public where the values in education have importance and even are a permanent part of regular curriculum, to create a better, more tolerable, more generous, more peaceful society, to make local authorities and decision makers be aware of the importance of the issue, to help to reach the aim of global unity to help to reduce the isolation in society. To achieve those short and long term objectives, CCV will use the social media, local and national media, oline platforms such as eTwinning, school gateway, project results sharing, project website, school webpages and give much importance to dissemination and sustainability activities. To sum up, in a world where gap generation, social isolation, violence, intolerence, self-centered life, cruelty, etc. are increasing rapidly, CCV is a project aiming at helping to transmit intercultural values of Europe and make new generations be aware of their good cultural elements and values that are needed for a better world. CCV will remind us the taste of being a human armed with values.
The Culture Covers Values project is an international project carried out under the Erasmus + programme. The project partnership consists of 5 partner schools from Latvia, Turkey, Portugal, Croatia, and North Macedonia. The aim of the Project was, and continues to be, to build a more understanding society by promoting intercultural cooperation based on mutual understanding, respect and understanding of the diversity of cultures and values. The target group for the project was students of age group 13 to 19. To achieve the objective of the project, students and teachers initially became familiar with their culture and the values it contained - before each learning activity, students had to conduct a study on a particular group of values - how these values had formed, how they are reflected in cultural elements - poetry, art, architecture, food and cooking traditions, architecture, religion, etc. to achieve the objective of the project. The results of the studying process were collected and presented during the LTTA, and one joint presentation was created from all the information gathered after each learning activity. Such activities contributed significantly to intercultural understanding, which had a positive impact not only on the intercultural communication skills of each participant, but on the overall attitude towards the processes taking place in the world. An integral part of the analysis was an exploration of the country's geography and history. Young people themselves concluded that our lives, traditions and attitudes were influenced by the place where we were born and raised. These were very important conclusions as there is sometimes no need to change anything, but such information helps to understand and accept the differences. Thanks to carefully developed training programmes and successfully selected training methods, the process of the project was interesting and enjoyable. Motivated and positive teachers were involved in the implementation of the project to assure qualitative process of project implementation. During the training activities, young people were greeted with interesting “ice breaking” activities, which boosted communication among them since the first activity day. On the first day of mobility there were created WhatsApp groups for smoother and more successful communication between students during the whole LTTA period. During the LTTA students took a lot of photos, made video clips and presentations, wrote essays and overtures, developed logos, digital and printed calendars, posters, participated in contests, used their favourite mobile Apps as Snapchat for Snap word competition and TikTok, and planted friendship trees. Thoughtfully planned training tours offered an insight into each country's culture. In each LTTA there was an opportunity to get to know the local environment - nature, architecture, infrastructure, etc. For accompanying people, this was an opportunity to learn new methods and technologies. During the project Wakelet.com was used as well as linktr.ee that previously had not been used in majority of partner’s schools. The fact that the project was carried out in English contributed to the development of English skills for all the involved in the project. The project involved children with limited opportunities – orphans, children from very low-income families, immigrants, young people from socially unwell families. For many young people and for some educators this project gave an opportunity to cross the border of their country for first time. Some participants had their first-flight experience. Project partners worked very actively on information dissemination activities. The project had its own website, Facebook profile, Instagram account, Wakalet profile, information on eTwinning environment, information on all partner schools’ home pages, publications in newspapers, etc. Nearly 59,000 people were reached through information dissemination activities, but we assume the figure is even higher because two articles were published in Aksaray local newspaper. The number of residents is about 250,000 people. After the completion of the project, the project partners will continue to maintain the project's website and profiles on social networks. The project also faced a number of challenges: THE COVID19 pandemic, which led to the extension of the project's implementation time and the restructuring of training activities; Due to the strike at the airport – Latvian participants did not reach their destination – training activity in Portugal, the war in Ukraine and the earthquake in Turkey, which had an emotional impact on all project participants. Despite all of the above, thanks to our flexibility and ability to adapt, we were able to overcome all difficulties and fulfil all the tasks we committed to in the project application, which is also confirmed by the results of questionnaires after each learning activity and reflection circles in each partner school.