An exchange would lead to motivation and a strengthened self-esteem at a time when the Fittja area is affected by high crime and young people in the area see opportunities in becoming criminals instead of studying and setting goals that lead to work. In our analysis of the students' results, we saw that goal achievement in the science-oriented subjects was low and that this was partly due to a lack of interest in the subject. The students simply could not see what benefit a higher grade would bring. Girls in particular who had other career choices in mind than becoming engineers showed little interest in raising their grades. By allocating half of the places for the exchange to girls, we therefore hoped to see an interest in different professions and thus higher studies in science among the female students. The climate engages young people around the world and especially in Sweden with Greta Tunberg as a leading figure, but in an area like Fittja, young people hardly know who she is. The Swedish curriculum clearly states that we should work with the climate, develop digital skills and work for diversity and inclusion. With a project like this, we would have the opportunity to develop how we work with those parts.
Fittjaskolan is located in a socio-economically disadvantaged area where the guardians' educational level is at best completed primary school and most lack a high school diploma. At the time of the application, we had a large number of newly arrived students and the students who were born in Sweden have parents who came to Sweden as adults. This means that the students' language level in Swedish is limited and so is the literary level at home. We therefore have a special mission as a school to work compensatoryly to motivate the students to focus on their studies and motivate them to pursue higher studies in Sweden or in other countries within the European Community. That was the primary reason why we applied for a KA2 project. We have also seen ignorance and a lack of commitment regarding climate change and the EU among students and in the local community in general.Given the current unrest in the world, it feels like an absolute necessity to create a commitment and spread knowledge about what is happening in Europe. Preserving democracy and values is a very important task for Europe's schools and here there was an opportunity to also highlight the importance of democratic processes in schools through cooperation between the pa