Negligence about one’s own future and environmental issues, mental disorders, depression and even burnout symptoms are nowadays a growing problem among young people. The motivation for this project is to tackle these problems by exchanging practices of teaching and learning environmental and entrepreneurial skills. This project is called Ways to a healthier and greener Europe and it aims to offer pupils a chance to broaden their perspective and to encourage them towards successful, happy and healthy life. Even though the world is getting smaller in the ways of communication technology, prejudices and xenophobia are narrowing the prospects for many young people. With this project we would like to broaden their prospects and to give them possibility to see other cultures and ways of life and give them tools by showing them how to take responsibility for their own life and make it a happy and healthy life without prejudices. This project is intended to create a greater interest for environmental issues and also to be an eye opener for joint European projects where you work with partners from other countries, with private companies and with for example non-profit organizations that work for similar goals. An important motivation is also a possibility to a developing dialogue between colleagues from other countries and a chance to learn from each other and exchange practices. Staff and pupils will practice their language skills and get new perspectives and points of view to their work. Each partner school will get added value in form of new skills and materials. During the project we will analyze the impact our behavior has on the environment and on our health and we want to work out common actions ( for example school rules for recycling and participating nature and environment conservation campaigns ) to raise the students’ awareness about the problems. Facing the fact of increasing unemployment among European citizens, it is of utmost importance to make young people ready for an international work, in order to facilitate the possibilities for future work opportunities and to make people more tolerant when it comes to their working environment and peers. Also, environmental issues are particularly salient for today’s generation. Thus, the climate-change risks that threat our planet indicate the need for a transition to sustainable energy and obviously our generation must be the one that adopts environmentally friendly ways of consumption and getting rid of waste. Pupils will create rules for recycling in schools and in a transnational project teenagers will see that it is our common responsibility to take care of our planet. The partner schools will attempt to encourage students to adapt pro-environmental behavior practices and community oriented solutions (volunteerism and civic participation). We will try to persuade them that it is their responsibility to lead the environmental movement forward along with a healthy, responsible lifestyle. With this project we would like to give the stakeholders tools and skills for making their future lives greener and more positive.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been felt globally, affecting all walks of life in personal, social and commercial contexts. The Cultural and Creative Industries are not exempt, and nor have they escaped the significant negative impact. Theatres, cinemas, operas, art galleries, museums, community arts groups have been forced to close at short notice. Schools were shut to most students, some have fully re-opened in Wales, many across Europe have a mixed approach with some year groups in full time and others a mix of F2F/online learning. This situation has left many young people stressed/concerned about their current and future lives. Many students have missed school for friendship and support from school staff and are now worried about catching up on their education. This has impacted negatively on their emotional wellbeing. The Children’s Commissioner’s report Wales 2020 highlighted that only 39% of the 12-18 year olds were confident to access counselling services in school. This project is unique as it aims to take creative arts experts and teaching professionals on a journey to create lessons/activities that use a range of creative arts media to engage learners to express their emotions/feelings. Many have these feelings pent up within themselves without an outlet for ‘unpacking’ their feelings, or someone to talk to or the language to express themselves. As a partnership of 6 schools, 4 creative arts experts and 2 education support organisations we will work as a PLC to carry out the followingBaseline assessment to evaluate starting point and final impact of the project on the role of Creative Arts methodology within schools as one of the support mechanisms to improve students’ health & emotional wellbeing. This will be developed into an in-depth RESEARCH based IMPACT EVALUATION REVIEW carried out with support from an independent researcher to produce a robust & dynamic impact evaluation report to drive policy development with policy influencers. Other Intellectual Outputs that will support the project to develop/deliver its intended impact include Online workshops/modules developed by CREATIVE ARTS experts to upskill teaching professionals and stored as a digital repository on open access sites. A toolkit of resources/lessons/activities produced by teaching staff developed after attending the online modules to develop and deliver high quality creative arts lessons/activities in schools. The majority of students targeted are learning in a bilingual environment and to support their language acquisition skills we will create between teaching professionals, students and creative arts experts a LEXICON of EMOTIONAL WELLBEING, which will be one of the unique features of this project. This will be developed into a progression route strategy for 3-19 year olds as part of each school’s Health & Wellbeing curriculum/policy.Our expected results/impact include:Students have the necessary vocabulary in their language of learning to express themselves confidently about their feelings, emotions and problems that have built up within themselves during the pandemic.•Students have gained confidence in a range of creative/cultural/expressive arts skills to communicate how they feel about the impact of Covid-19 on themselves, their families, and friends.•Teaching staff and related support staff (pastoral/counselling staff) develop the skill set to provide support and guidance to pupils to express themselves confidently in the native language used within school setting•School staff are comfortable and confident in using a range of creative, cultural and expressive arts- based methods to develop their own repertoire of approaches to linguistic and emotional support.•Schools have mechanism/vocabulary and progression route for talking about feelings from foundation phase into transition years of secondary school and beyond.•Develop resilience strategy within the school and their local community for the current situation and future challengesOur longer-term benefits are anticipated as follows:•Policy changes within schools to develop an emotional wellbeing progression route for talking about feelings from foundation phase into transition years of secondary school and beyond.•Higher profile on the importance of CREATIVE ARTS and EXPRESSIVE ARTS across the curriculum•Better emotional wellbeing resilience for schools, their students and teaching staff•Greater engagement between school communities and local creative arts community.

"""Enhancing ICT skills through Exploring our European Cultural Identity"" is our proposal of a project from the school education area within the Erasmus+ programme which numbers five organizations from the European Union with common identified needs that can be stated, in short, by mentioning the urge to face successfully the constant progress of digital technology, the necessity of adapting the learning process to the increasingly culturally heterogeneous groups of pupils, the placing an emphasis on instilling in our young collaborators the European values such as: tolerance, understanding of other cultures or human rights. After having identified those desiderata for our schools and communities, we deduced the objectives and they are also worth being revised: To raise awareness and communicate on the importance of the cultural diversity to combat social exclusion and discrimination;- To introduce new teaching and learning methods based on ICT techniques and tools;- To recognize and assimilate the values of national culture in the European context.Then, we showed the reasons why our project should be funded and stated that we were going to highlight, explore and exploit for educational purposes the similarities and differences related to our cultural values, and that it was possible only through this partnership, not being the kind of work to be done solely. One partner only would not be going further than the surface of things, we are not talking about impersonal reports, we are proposing real experience, feelings and people interactions to be fostered. Furthermore, we divided the two year project span into four stages corresponding to four project stages of activities, each having subdivisions which were detailed in the timetable:1. SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES2. OUR CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE EUROPEAN FAMILY3. ICT - THE BEST CULTURAL AMBASSADOR4. LET'S SHARE OUR TREASURE All partners expressed their will to contribute to the project progress by taking responsibility for chunks of implementation, coming to the following distribution: first stage- responsible Romania and Cyprus; second - Latvia and Finland; third - Portugal and Cyprus; fourth - Romania and Finland. Cyprus is the main coordinator, experienced, and former partner of Romania in a previous project, an important aspect when talking about group cohesion.As a most important target group we estimate five hundred students and teachers to be directly involved in activities and the corresponding communities for support, these being made up of parents, local authorities, school inspectorate representatives and different collaborating bodies such as cultural centers or Europe Direct centers. As results, we want to create substantial learning experiences for students, mainly, with a view to preparing them for the successful approaching of job market and living as reliable and decent citizens in the multicultural society. The outcomes will range from theoretical knowledge about other cultures and educational computer applications to enhancing abilities and changing attitudes towards culturally different peers, if we mention the intangible outputs. The tangible ones are: brochures, newsletters, eTwinning journals, teaching approaches focused on using ICT tools and culture elements, project sites. There will also be a smartphone application containing the most representative materials, quizzes, stories and other links.The results are the way to reaching our objectives, steps towards our aims. By working on similarities and differences of our cultures, the students become more aware of the cultural diversity and more able to to combat social exclusion and discrimination. Also, teachers will introduce new teaching and learning methods based on ICT techniques and tools having as raw material the student work on cultural items. Throughout the activity implementation, all participants will become better connoisseurs of the values of national culture in the European context as they will be searchers and promoters of such assets.Finally, there is a well-discussed dissemination plan and an outcome exploitation plan provisioning the benefit from new materials, teaching methods and digital tools i.e. to be utilized within our organizations and for sharing. These will be used both during regular classes and in making up proposals for optional courses. Our plans are to exploit the project outcomes in various future Erasmus collaboration programs: eTwinning, KA1 and KA2, depending on opportunity, convenience and partner."

"""AroUnd the fiRe OveR the wAters - Sharing Arts, Music and Culture for Peace and Inclusion"" acronym AURORA, is a project proposal based on sharing common ideas come from initially two partners - Romania & Italy who based the Twinspace similar project. Quickly, the other three partners from France - the main coordinator, Cyprus & Sweden showed interest for the topic, starting to compare their own organization needs with the new possibilities of international collaboration. Soon it was obvious that all partner schools shared the same requirements of institutional development through a common learning experience that must be directed towards the development of intercultural education, whose values: tolerance, freedom, openness, acceptance of differences, understanding of diversity, pluralism & cooperation, respond to the determinism of the present society, characterized by diversity & change. Likewise, we determined that the problems of our educational communities, such as school failure, the feeling of exclusion, the phenomenon of school drop-out, caused by the phenomena of “ People Mobility”, call for an approach to education through the vision of a world of diversity: cultures, religions, different languages, people with different opinion & ideas. In the wake of the eTwinning further communication & online meetings, our main objective was to develop our schools as institutions that promote an education to all the students of each partner institution & particularly to students aged 10-15, our target group, which takes place in an intercultural perspective in order to prevent & reduce school exclusion & failure, having subordinate aims:Preventing early school leaving by reducing disparities in learning outcomes which affect learners with fewer opportunities: SEN, student with disadvantaged backgrounds & learners with disabilities Combating failure in education by providing informal & non-formal learning.Raising awareness of Europe cultural heritage, using art, music & traditions as means of motivating & hooking up on learningPromoting the social inclusion of pupils by allowing them to open up to other cultures, to make their culture known, by living an unprecedented artistic & cultural experienceReducing acts of violence, incivility & vehicle a peace message within their structures through the virtues of music & the arts in terms of attention, concentration & stress reductionGiving students a serene & ease environmentThe involvement of all participants was substantial from the start, we moved on to dividing the implementation period in four stages of activities ""Partners around oceans and seas"", “The music all around: the rhythm and the sound”, “Let’s become all artists”, Together for peace: Sharing our experience in the field of intercultural dialogue for peace and inclusion beyond the project borders” & ensuring for each of them two organizations to be held responsible for a good & effective management. Also, members of the teams took responsibility for dissemination & exploitation of results, management, partner communication or risks.Innovative & learner- centered pedagogical approaches, innovative activities & teaching methods, acquiring & improving ICT, foreign languages & communicative competence in English as working language of the project will be developed & improved by an international partnership which confers all participants an European perspective which is highly beneficial for each in terms of not only teaching but also management & possibility of future collaborations different areas.The results are a materialized expression of the objectives as we intend to create diverse materials to be used in classes for regular use or in non-formal contexts. They will be posted in the project TwinSpace regularly & the outcome of the project will be a Project Interactive Platform representative of all our common experience, collecting stories & other important cultural items created by our students. What's more, not only will visitors outside the project access our base, they will have the facility of uploading themselves new interesting materials on the topic, enriching & diversifying our final product. There will be conclusions & steps to be taken consequently, we will hopefully be glad to emphasize the change in student attitude & reaction towards the multicultural environment so as they will be able to become young people fit for a dynamic society & labour market.Certainly, most of the project results will be used in other partnerships, national or international, including eTwinning future collaborations. Also, the project knowledge & materials will be used in designing optional courses. Our final product, Project Interactive Platform called ""Around the fire, over the water"", an online collection of stories & Erasmus+ experiences, will be available for improvement by us, sharing & inspiring other people. Finally, we will use this resource for any other Erasmus+ partnership, when suitable."