The program aimed to promote equal opportunities and elevate the artistic elements of gastronomy in education. Through art therapy and experiential education, a comprehensive personality development took place within the project, and sparking interest in the hospitality industry was a goal. The experiential education project consisted of well-designed series of creative activities, and the act of creation provided young people with a sense of accomplishment, aiding in restoring self-esteem, establishing a positive self-image, and developing social competencies and initiative. The creative artistic activities were intertwined with elements of gastronomic design and food art. The positive changes resulting from artistic development had a significant impact on human competencies, mobility, creative activities, and recognition forums (competitions, exhibitions, presentations, media coverage). It led to students believing that opportunities are available to them, enabling them to seize them and perform tasks. This made them more goal-oriented, opened up a previously closed world to them, materialized a reality in mobility that was previously unthinkable to them, and the recognition of their work strengthened their future motivations.
In our school, there are many young people who require special treatment. These are students who struggle with learning difficulties, have a harder time fitting into the community, experience socio-cultural disadvantages, have mental issues, and generally possess less motivation for learning, self-improvement, and exploring the world. In their case, we have encountered that four main factors fundamentally hinder our students from becoming entrepreneurs and entering the labor market: underdeveloped personality traits, low mobility factor, lack of creativity, and absence of foreign language skills. Since the majority of our students participate in training at various levels of the tourism-hospitality sector, the absence of these mentioned competencies becomes a hindering factor for them in employment. As an innovative teaching community, we have aimed to quickly respond to this pedagogical and professional challenge. Therefore, we have developed an experiential educational project based on artistic education, which is capable of bringing about change in the mentioned competency areas and suitable for overcoming or at least mitigating the problems arising from disadvantages.