In carrying out the project, we wanted to make students and their families aware that there is other than passive way to spend leisure time; that meals prepared and eaten together are a bonding factor for the family and provide an opportunity to stimulate responsibility for food decisions. We wanted to show that building positive relationships with the environment is necessary to maintain psychophysical well-being, and that the state of the environment in which we live is an integral part of this. Hence the main goal of our project was to improve the health of students by acquiring the right attitudes. We also wanted to show parents how to take care of their children's health by changing the way they think about shopping. We hoped that a daily trip to the store would result in a conscious purchase of healthy foods in place of previous choices. We wanted to support teachers in their daily work with students. All project activities were planned to include all students at the school - a meeting with a nutritionist, workshops, creation of a vademecum, a card of healthy dishes, an herbarium and a glossary of terms about healthy lifestyles, information on the FB profile. All the results both teachers and parents can still benefit from.
We applied for this project because of the alarming observations we made among our students with intellectual disabilities and their parents, especially during the post-pandemic period. Our observations and survey results clearly indicated a lack of knowledge and proper attitudes in the context of broadly defined physical and mental health and healthy lifestyles. Attention to this problem was also drawn by our partners from Ahtme Kool in Estonia, LCEducational and LCYouth in Cyprus. The spreading epidemic of obesity and the diseases caused by it has begun to become a serious problem, and the lack of elementary knowledge has exacerbated it. People with intellectual disabilities are particularly susceptible to bad influences in this aspect. Our goal was to show students and their parents the alternatives they could use on a daily basis to improve their health. The project therefore responded to the needs of each participating institution, as shaping a young person as a responsible citizen who cares about his or her own health and that of others, as well as the quality of the environment, is the goal and mission not only of our school, but also of each of our partners.