Learning about Environment, Activism, Volunteering in Educational Schemes

"<< Background >>The reason of applying for this project was to promote comprehensive language learning through working with foreign partners and deal with topics provoking lifestyle change; there has been the need to make our pupils advocates of a healthy, sporty, green and responsible approach - to everything. The partner schools also wished for looking for ways of triggering creativity and work with digital tools, especially via the film - / video-making process. The project has had a volunteering aspect too.The plan has been to include volunteering and civic engagement into the policy of schools. This goal has been successfully fullfilled.<< Objectives >>Besides implementing CLIL (the whole project was na example of this method as the official language was English) we wanted to create a mindful team of volunteers promoting the main topics of the project (BE HEALTHY! , BE GREEN!, BE MINDFUL!, BE CREATIVE!, BE SPORTY!, BE RESPONSIBLE!). The main objectives were to set up a youtube channel promoting and disseminating our work and activities, as well as to create an ebook of resources which shares the best partial results and outputs of our 3-year adventure, also serving as a piece of inspiration for teachers, mentors and educators. Our international ""volunteam"" also produced 6 issues of LEAVES magazine summing up the happening of each Student and Teacher Workshop (STW) and the partial results of the project.<< Implementation >>We organized workshops via physicsal mobilities. Each partner hosted a workshop whose aim was to make teachers and pupils work together and come up with creative project ideas. Besides these physical mobilities, each country worked on their own volunteer goals: the Macedonian partner, for instance, organized a Red Cross team of volunteers in their school which focused on the BE HEALTHY! aspect of our project. The Polish and Slovak teams opted for charity work; they organized and also took part in fund raising events as well as advocated the green aspect of the project. The Portugal team chose the BE MINDFUL aspect; there was a teacher training initiative and the students could learn to become mindful, too; they also created a tutoring centre at their school. The Cypriots opted for promoting inclusion in sports and dissemination of results via podcasting. Within the 5-day workshops hosted by each partner, there were different activities: groupwork, excursions nad visits of sights, teambuilding, intercultural exchange (see a sample of programme attached below). There were also special ""home"" workshops dealing with the above mentioned themes and issues of the project and disseminating our results. << Results >>The concrete outputs were:1. The LEAVES YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@erasmusleaves)2. The e-book of resources (available at https://joom.ag/9z2d, as well as at https://www.erasmusplusleaves.com/about-5-18 and also uploaded onto European Results Platform))3. The magazines (they are included in the e-book too)4. The website (https://www.erasmusplusleaves.com)These were the tangible outputs of the project. Besides these there were outcomes, such as exchange of good practice, sharing commmon European values, leading intercultural dialogue. The most important outcome, however, was including the need of European projects into the school policies and emphasizing strengthening of civic engagement, altruism and volunteering with school pupils, students and teachers."