"This project’s priority is to support individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills, key competences inside and outside of school that promote a sense of international citizenship and global responsibility, while also fostering a more authentic and engaging approach to language learning. The main topic for this project deals with the critical question: How is water important and how will it continue to shape the lives of people in the future? This project is a call to action to ignite change and facilitate a deeper understanding of the fragility of the world’s natural resources that will empower students to make well-rounded, informed decisions in their future and the future of the planet. This journey begins by encouraging students to investigate the aforementioned question through a variety of content areas, cross-cutting concepts to create a deeper understanding of the age-old adage: Water is life.The role water has played in the development of mankind is complex and its use continues to be a topic of contention in the modern world; it is an essential life component and access to this resource should be a fundamental human right. Within current topics about the environment, such as climate change and people´s responsibility for conservative water use. Within current topics about the environment, such as climate change and people’s responsibility for conservative water usage, there is also the opportunity for students to explore important themes of water in art, literature, the humanities, to create a holistic vision of the value of water to the human race. Subjects that will be used to explore the nuances of the role of water in human life include skills in: environ. studies; ICT; physical +cultural geography; agriculture; biology; chemistry; language, literature; philosophy; history, the arts. The project seeks to provide an interesting, engaging, and relatable dialogue for students to connect to while exploring the overarching question, having participants reflect on the significance and personal value of water in their future lives and community and then applying these sentiments and experiences to the world in broader context. Students from different partner institutions will share their experience with global problems related to lack of water or threats to water integrity and state attitudes.Collaborating with partners and their educational institutions that hold different perspectives and legislations about water use will provide the students with an interesting lens to analyze and reflect on their country’s attitude and use of water resources. This project will cultivate respect and understanding for other people and their environments, as well as scaffold an attitude of shared responsibility and duty to protect the EU and the world’s natural wonders and resources. The project as the whole should attract students´ attention to be struck by this alarming situation and lead them to take the responsibility for their future.The goal of this project is to challenge students to create solutions for current issues related to water conservation and environmental responsibility of educational institutions. Using both the participants’ own personal connection to the environment (water) and school-based curriculum (technical subjects, humanities) this project seeks to inform students about water-related environmental issues, like the effects of climate change and the responsible use of natural resources, to create an action plan that protects the planet’s under-appreciated natural wealth. The project work will have 3 phases running during the exchanges (workshops, visits, field and team work) or before them within the school subjects or via internet communication. Phase 1: They will investigate the intricate water systems in the world; analyse data about water use and consumption; debate issues related to water rights and ownership; discuss the role of responsibility in protecting and conserving this vital and valuable resource (water cycle, sources, ecosystem, use, environment, modification, legislation); they will create multimedia presentations.Phase 2: It builds complex, technical concepts off of Phase1 (essays, posters, photos, legends, songs, definitions, quotations).Students explore water as a historical and cultural landscape represented in artistic mediums that portray the importance of water in daily life. Students will investigate and create document: What does water mean to you? Final 3 Phase:Challenges students to combine the scientific data with artistic outputs to create a booklet.Teachers will strive to facilitate international and intercultural cooperation to strengthen awareness of EU and international citizenship surrounding the imperative need for society to take responsibility for the climate and future life on our planet. The importance of this project resides into the awareness "" No water - no life""."

Schools from Poland, Portugal, Italy and Croatia decided to realise the innovative for each institution project connected with the specific area. Our schools are placed in different parts of Europe including bright green lands and we will try to connect environment education, ICT with carrier counselling. It was caused by few reasons. Taking into account our conditions, location and previously mentioned difficulties and social risks we implemented the new, innovative for all institutions synergy. In every school we expanded our ICT knowledge using new tools to create final products or communicate to each other. For instance we created multimedia presentation with Prezi, Emaze, Kizoa, Vimeo films, a kinds of electronical books like Flipsnack using new technology and specific sites with modern tools which haven’t been used yet in our schools. The next component was the environmental education from visits in our local woods, national parks, companies connected with carpentry, forestry and yachts building to practical way of education like planting trees. Researches, documentation ( photos, films, recordings, juxtapositions) were presented in different forms – in electronic and traditional way. The last point of our synergy was connected with social exclusion and the risk of leaving school early. We organized lessons devoted career counselling. There were meetings with people who occupy this topic and workers in national parks, shipyards, carpentry companies, foresters, former students who are now in military school. We showed young people possibilities of workplaces in their own areas, the ways of education in secondary schools and universities. Better learning and teaching were the main objectives of this project. Every activities planned were the part of the curricula disciplines and teaching but with a different and original point of view and new perspectives. We could assert that all activities planned during the different mobilities were designed as learning activities in themselves and the results were achieved:Ice breaking activities – we made multimedia presentations and films about schools , regions . Students and teachers used Skype, Facebook and Twinspace or chats to lead video-conferences; multilingual vocabulary with names of plants was created , digital or paper albums with dried plants, leaves of trees with the names in mother tongue, Latin and English were presented during visits and on websites. Students under the teachers’ supervision collected the tales connected with woods and forests. After visiting local companies using wood as a raw material : discovering careers, economic elements, management of a companies -the reports are presented on school, eTwinning and Facebook sites. Teachers organized meetings with forresters ( as a possible job in the nearest area). Woods and forests as a source and the resource of life- National Park and Natural Reservation visits, Nature museums. These educational/recreational activities of the forest heritage mainly took place during the mobilities - reports illustrated with photos or videos were published online in order to share with the others still at home. Our Forestry Cuisine- characteristic recipies + photos using forest fruits and mushrooms collected among our families. They are traditional or recently invented recipies (mother tongue + English, online publishing on eTwinning and school sites). The International Days of Forests and The Days of Earth were devoted to outdoor activities for students e.g. trees planting, taking photos , knowledge quizzes, drawinf plants, recognizing animals voicecs etc. Final questionnaire was created for all participants (management of the schools, teachers, pupils, parents, local and the results are accessible on the project websites. Writing reports and publishing them on the Internet favoured the development of the language and ITC skills.Sharing the life of a family in an alien country expanded mind openness, cultural discoveries and developed language & communication skills. Teachers as well as students also discovered new ways to live at school, different kinds of relationships between pupils and adults and other teaching methods.

Big changes are happening in all layers of society in Europe. Migration, culture clashes, poverty, unemployment and fast-evolving working places are creating more and more vulnerable groups of people who don’t fit in.To prevent more people of becoming part of these vulnerable groups and to reach out to them who are struggling to climb up the social and economical ladder, we need to invest not only in hard skills but also in their soft skills. Skills such as (but not limited to) communication, teamwork, problem solving, attitude, leadership … are absolutely critical to success in today’s society. Research shows they are the key to empowerment.The project partners in Flanders, The Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Cyprus and North-Macedonia felt an urgent need to work hand in hand to set up a European project for training and validation of soft skills. The partners in Flanders, The Netherlands, Sweden and Macedonia work with different vulnerable groups of learners: low-skilled adults, migrants, drop-outs and isolated women. The project partners in Portugal and Cyprus are specialized in different domains of professional qualification, training, professional education and validation & certification. In other words, all partners invest in people searching for a better future.The main objective of the project is to increase employability, better social integration and more successful education of vulnerable groups. The KA2-project was therefor called ReTraVaSSEV: recognition, training and validation of soft skills for employability of vulnerable groups. The project had three main goals: 1. perform an international desktop study on soft skills, 2. create a set of training tools for trainers to train the learners (vulnerable groups) and 3. create a set of validation tools.Desktop study O1:Based on several international studies the six partners created during the Transnational Project Meeting in Cyprus (December 2017) three questionnaires: for employers, for disadvantaged adult learners and for trainers in adult education. The international group of respondents was highly diversified by several factors: age, gender, level of education and present employment situation. The questionnaires referred to basic/fundamental skills, people-related skills, conceptual/thinking skills and personal skills & attributes. The questionnaires were carried out in the partners’ countries between January and April 2018.During the Project Meeting in Den Helder (May 2018) we discussed the aggregated results of the questionnaires. This discussion resulted in a selection of six soft skills that are relevant in the six participating countries: intercultural communication, learning to learn, conflict management, teamwork, customer service and motivation.Training tools O2:After we split the soft skills among the partners, we decided to create three training tools for each soft skill. Each partner composed a team of trainers to reflect on the tools. As the tools are meant for disadvantaged learners, they should be comprehensive, low level, easy to use and low-cost. It took us quite a long time to develop these 18 different tools. A first draft of the tools was presented by the teachers during the Learning, Teaching and Training event in Madeira (November 2018). After the Madeira meeting an extensive testing period started in the six participating countries. We either tested the tools in existing classes, or we created special classes to test the tools. Each partner tested its own three tools and the tools of one of the partner countries. The test results were presented during the Project Meeting in Sweden (March 2019). In Sweden we decided that a final version of the tools should be ready before the end of April 2019. As soon as the coordinator had received all the final versions, each partner started translating the 18 tools (working language: English) in the several countries’ languages: Dutch, Swedish, Macedonian, Greek and Portuguese. The translations were performed by our language trainers. During the translating period a first draft of the design was created. The final version of the manual, presenting the 18 tools in an appealing design, was realised in September 2019. Validation tools O3:The validation part was already an issue when creating the tools, but we had not yet created the actual validation tools. The meeting in North-Macedonia (May 2019) brought relief in this seemingly most difficult part of our project. During the Learning, Teaching and Training event in North-Macedonia we decided about several validation tools: portfolio, evaluation form for trainers, self-assessment form for learners, general evaluation form and certificate. Already during the meeting we started creating the validation tools for the respective training tools. We agreed to finish the validation tools by June 2019. Again, these validation tools had to be translated (suggested deadline July 2019) and had to be adapted into the final design.The soft skills manual as well as the validation tools can be downloaded on the project’s website skillsforyou.eu. Dissemination:The manual and the validation tools were presented during an international dissemination event in Brussels (October 8, 2019). The dissemination of the project informed policy makers, principals, staff members, teachers, volunteers, coaches and other stakeholders about the importance of soft skills for employment, social integration and successful education. During national multiplier events (workshops) in every partner's country (October – November 2019), the manual and the tools were presented to teachers working in adult education, regional authorities responsible for education and employment, and regional employment agencies.