Artisanship and Recovering Traditions against Inactivity School drop-out and for social Aggregation Nature and Skills at School

"Many European countries live a contradiction: on the one hand worrying levels of youth unemployment and school dropouts and on the other hand craft, agricultural and forestry activities that progressively disappear with their wealth of knowledge, traditions and culture.Is it possible to overcome this contradiction by linking traditional crafts, at risk of disappearance, and young students who risk getting lost, today in school and tomorrow in a labour market that offers no more security?Is it possible in 2018, the European year of culture, to link the valorisation of ancient agricultural, artisan or forest traditions with school and professional training?Is it desirable that we can build a network of relationships and exchanges that will make flourish in students curiosity and interest in those ""crafts"" with their economic, social and cultural value, stimulating creativity and curiosity for the uniqueness of the artisanal agricultural work and forestry in young people often overwhelmed by the standardization of mass production? Is it appropriate to do so thanks to international exchanges between countries with a past rich in traditions, knowledge, craft realities, culture and skills, and a present sometimes characterized by high levels of youth unemployment?We believe that all this is possible and indispensable and that the role of schools is decisive:-because stimulating curiosity towards craft activities that can also offer occupational developments, it is plausible to oppose school drop-out.-because one of the objectives we set ourselves is to experiment, through the exchange between schools and the relationship with some artisanal, agricultural and forestry realities in partner countries, new training methodologies that enrich our teachers and offer students a stock of transversal skills that help them to complete their knowledge and increase their chances of success once they leave school.- Because we want to do all this by trying the difficult but fascinating way of developing a fruitful exchange between ancient crafts, manual skills and the potential offered by multimedia technologies genetically owned by the new generations.- Because we want to stimulate, through the exchange of knowledge and experience between schools, families and agricultural and forestry factories in other countries, not only a curiosity aimed at job prospects, but also the knowledge of other languages, cultures and traditions and the growth of a more mature European consciousness, of a curiosity without prejudices towards those who have different histories and backgrounds from their own, as well as the increase of awareness of how much, works harmoniously connected with nature, are fundamental for the protection of environment.The activities we aim to develop are aimed at teachers on the one hand, and on the other at students between the ages of 15 and 18, and the objectives and results we want to achieve are ambitious:- develop skills in students that facilitate job prospects and enrich their socio-cultural background, thanks to the mobility between schools and collaboration with artisan companies.- Valuing craft activities and their impact on European culture and history, as the cornerstone of the training path- Improve entrepreneurship and professional orientation of students- Develop an educational experimentation that, thanks to the propos.ed activities, to concrete job openings, to forms of peer-meeting among students, contrasts the scholastic abandonment, enhancing the experiences of the realities in which the phenomenon is more contained.- Activate collaborations between schools, artisans and families as an opportunity for learning aimed at the work and the enhancement of traditions, identities and experiences of non formal education.- Development of a toolkit that makes the educational experimentation exportable.- Peer-meetings in which the older students motivate the younger ones to study and work life.- Preparation of a tool that allows an advanced assessment of knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the students.- Structural agreements between institutional actors, educational institutions and crafts activities involved.- Preparation of a research, developed by the students, on the ancient trades of their areas and construction of a database on the activities still present in the territory.- Preparation of a digital exhibition on local crafts, their modern applications, possible innovations and objects built by students with videos made during the training course.If it is true, as Einstein said, that ""Creativity is intelligence having fun"" with our project we intend to invest on the intelligence of our students and on the creativity of our artisans returning to have faith in the future while having fun."