Laanila's Erasmus+ Sustainable Development Presentation in Melilla

Hola!

We come from Oulu, Finland. Our city is the largest city in Northern Finland. Here's a short video of our city.

Video:
City of Oulu

We come from Laanila High School. We have 320 students and our school has worked for sustainable development for several years. We'll show you a video of about that now.

Video:
Sustainable Development Education at Laanila

Our school is also a UNESCO School. Here's a video about that.

Video:
Unesco ASPnet School Laanila High School

And here's some information about the latest sustainable activities we have had and what we are planning to do at our school this year.

Powerpoint:
PP presentation

Sustainable Living in Reunion

Nowadays, global warming is at the heart of our concerns. That is why we must change our habits and lifestyles : we cannot continue to destroy our beautiful planet without saying anything ! But if we want our actions to matter, we need each other to achieve them, so that everyone can start living more sustainably. Let’s look at which activities are already part of our daily routines, what we want to include and what we think the government should do.

The fact that there is now a huge issue concerning the environment can not be unseen anymore. However, many people still don't care about this, because they probably don't realize the extent of these problems neither its growing impact in our lives, or even because they are not able to change their habits. We will not go so far as to say that we are exemplary ecologists, but we are aware of the issue and try to make our contribution as we can and attempt to evolve every day in this field.

First of all, the most of us are already reducing their household energy use by turning off appliances and lights that we are not using, installing energy-efficient appliances and also hanging clothes to dry instead of using the dryer. Those actions are the ones we do at home, but we also act at school, by being part of a project named “eco-students” which goal is  to make people aware of ecological issues, make the school “greener” by planting more vegetation, by limiting the consumption of plastic and inviting the canteen to use bio products and less meat .

What we also do is reselling and donate our items. Indeed as teenagers we buy a lot of clothes so we are trying to be more aware about it : we try to buy less and give more. The textile industry is one of the most polluting in the world so it’s also important to buy our clothes on thrift store.

We are doing what we can face to climate change, and we noticed that people, in community or individually, seem to care more and more about it too. There are obviously other things we could do and want to do for the planet like rely less on our cars, consume only local food, or purchase just fair-trade products. However, we are living on an island where it is more difficult to use other ways of transport because of the mountains and the hills.  Nevertheless, although we have to act individually, most of the changes and improvements for the environment can be done uniquely with the help of our government, whom, nowadays, still doesn't do anything, even though more and more teenagers continue to demonstrate in the streets to protest his inaction.

The government should definitely turn faster toward sustainable development and renewable energies. To let this happen, they could initiate some kinds of benefits for users of sustainable energy.                                                                                                                           

To continue, it is necessary that the country encourages people to adopt a greener lifestyle by making it more affordable, as fair-trade and biological products are too expensive for the moment. Finally, governments could create laws that would require people to live an ecological daily life.

To conclude, we must continue to act individually to limit the impact of global warming, but it is also important to ensure that the state also mobilizes so that our actions are effective.

Emilien, Roxana and Stella

Exchange students from Reunion

Sustainable Living in Finland

 

                                                                

My Lifestyle 

                                                                      

We live in a big white detached house. The room temperature in our house is about 21C°. We turn off the appliances and the lights that we are not using. When we go out, we check that every light is turned off. In the summer we open our windows to cool down the room temperature. We don´t use the dryer a lot because we often hang our clothes to dry. We cook food and we don´t eat out that much. We are trying to not waste any food. We grow berries and apples in our backyard. We try to recycle everything we can. We also sell our old stuff and donate some to charity. I try to waste less water by not taking long showers and not using warm/hot water. I think that it´s important to take care of our beautiful nature. Nature is so important to us and it makes us happy.       

                                                                                                                                           
Olli Pirttimaa

Household Energy Use                                                                                                                    

I think I am pretty good at saving energy in my household. I don´t usually waste energy that much, because I think it isn´t ecological and it can be quite expensive. I always turn off all the lights in my room when I don´t need them and I always turn off all the electronics when I don´t use them. For example, I always turn off my TV when I don´t watch it. I try to keep my room´s thermostat set as low as possible, but of course not too low during winters. Our living room´s thermostat is also always set quite low. My parents always hang our clothes, rather than use a dryer. We don´t even own a dryer. We also always use an electric tea kettle to boil water. One thing we´ll have to change in our energy usage, is that we use the coffee maker too often, but I don´t think that it´s that big of a deal. I think my family and I are good at saving energy. But I still think we could be better.

                                                                                                                                        '
Eetu Kanniainen

My Green Enough Family                                                                                                                 

My family isn´t the most conserving family out there, but we try our best. Turning the lights in a room no one is in is something we always do. It´s an unwanted waste of electricity. We don´t use any single use items unless it´s a special occasion for example, a party and there´s not enough plates for everybody. Recycling is something we do. We mostly recycle paper and cardboard and sometimes other things such as batteries. Most of the clothes that have gone small, we put up for sale or give to someone else. Broken clothes go into trash anyhow. We don´t drink bottled water, because it´s not necessary. We always drink from the tap and use tap water for cooking and such. We have two bathrooms, each with a dual-flush toilet. I´m the only one in my family who uses a bicycle, it´s not because they don´t like cycling or that they´re lazy. My parents just don´t have bicycles and their workplaces are quite far away from home. Because of this they must rely on their cars to get them to different places. My family is quite green in my opinion and we will try to improve in the future.

Riku Jääskeläinen

Taking Care of the Environment   

                                                                                                 

Our family takes care of nature. We save energy and we recycle. I want to continue this life style. For example, I could live in a small house and maybe I could live there with some friends so it would be cheaper to live.  I have two brothers and one sister, so, we have a lot of extra clothes. I think it would be nice if we donated the too small clothes to poor people. We can also eat local food and we grow some of our own food and vegetables.

We can also make some of our own energy by building wind turbines and placing solar panels on our roof. That would help us to save money.

Our family travels a lot. We fly few times a year and drive a car at least 15 kilometers a day. In my opinion that´s way too much. And it´s so expensive. Luckily, my parents have good salaries.

Veetu Svala

Sustainable Lifestyle                                                                                                                         

My family is quite ecological. We recycle papers, plastics and cardboard. My brother and I go to school by bike, and my mom usually rides a bike to work too. Our house is heated by water that is circulating under the floors. So, we don´t have to burn oil or wood or pellets to keep our house warm. We try to keep biowaste in the minimum and try not to buy too much groceries at a time. I think trying to live as sustainably as possible is important. It´s a shame that many of the world´s most powerful people don´t want to believe and see the global warming. It´s sad that for an example the Brazilian president doesn´t do anything to the Amazon rainforest fires or let anyone help. He is just saying that “Amazon is not the lungs of the world, it´s Brazil´s property, and I can do whatever I want with it.” I hope that someday soon everybody realizes the seriousness of this situation and tries to make it better. It won´t help if only Finland or some other small country tries to slow down or stop the global warming. I hope that the next president of the United States is smarter and thinks what´s best for the Earth.

                                                                                                                 
Lasse Räinä

My Family´s Sustainability                                                                                                               

My family and I don´t live extremely sustainably, more just to make life easier. We always turn off the lights, the TVs, and other appliances when we leave the house/room, but more just so they would live longer, rather than because we want to be sustainable and save nature.

We don´t waste much food, because my family doesn´t do much but eat, but we eat a lot of e.g. ready-made pizza, so we have a lot of plastic trash.

Plastic trash, which we do not recycle by the way. We only have trash bin, and that is where all our trash goes, no matter if it´s plastic, paper, metal, glass, or anything really.

I would like to be one of the people who recycle and live sustainably in many ways. I want to move to the countryside when I´m older and start recycling and have a compost and an electric car. I also want to grow as much food as possible for my family, but that awaits me in the future, hopefully.

                                                                                                                                          

Julia Puominen

Sustainable Life     

                                                                                                                            

This is a topic that I´m particularly interested in right now. My family and I have started paying attention to this type of issues even though we still could do a lot more.

I think that we´re doing a pretty great job at remembering to turn off the lights when leaving a room and unplugging unnecessary things.  Even if we have air conditioning, we don´t use it that much and in the winter our house isn´t too warm. We don´t have a dryer and we hang-dry our clothes.

Sustainable eating isn´t easy but we´re trying. We have a compost that we use, and we use the soil from the compost for some of our plants. We´ve been planning to make our own garden for vegetables, but that´s next summer.

Our family has been donating a lot of clothes and toys to the Res Cross foundation. The only problem is that we sometimes still tend to buy unnecessary stuff and items that we don´t need.

I´ve noticed that my parents taught my sister and I to recycle when we were younger, so we are good at that. We recycle plastics, newspapers, cardboards, biodegradable stuff, electronics, batteries, metals, glass and chemical waste. Now that I´ve written all those things down I feel like we do more than I´ve ever realized.

                                                                                                                                              
Annika Repo

Eco-Ambassadors from Reunion Arrived at Laanila High School, Oulu, Finland

Laanila's new two-month exchange students Emilien, Roxana and Stella arrived at Laanila High School. In the following two months they will live in Finnish host families, study at the high school and experience both the colourful fall and the chilly start of the winter! Bienvenue to Oulu, Finland!

Laanila Activists in Green Flag, UNESCO and Erasmus+ Joined Their Forces

Sustainable development and climate actions are important themes in Laanila. Both the old and the new opinion leaders got to know each other at the bowling alley at beginning of the school year. In addition, the group brainstormed on good deeds and their communication procedures to the entire school community.

The preliminary activity program includes the following:
- presentation of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030
- challenging the school community in everyday sustainability actions
- encouraging the students to take part in the sustainability logo competition
- increasing recycling receivers in the school building
- arranging Christmas charity collections
- taking part in Amnesty Letter Marathon for alarming crimes against humanity
- being inspired by TV's Gutsy Go youth peace troops                                                                          - doing good and courageous deeds to make a positive impact and help change the world

Finland can be the first country in the world that educates its youth to become peace makers.                   - This is what we believe in at Laanila!

Iisa Kivioja 16A Saku Koutaniemi 17C Alisa Kaisti 18C Juuso Koivuranta 18C Verna Rytkönen 18A
Olivia Soukka 18B Alma Suutari 18A Aukusti Hackzell 19C Oskari Koivumäki 19B Jussi Moilanen19B
Ilona Mwai 19C Ella Nätti 19C

Tiina Fredriksson, Heikki Pöykkö and Janna Väänänen

Learning, teaching, training meetings 2019-2021

Week 46, 11.-15.11.2019

IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez, Melilla, Spain: Project planning, introduction to SDGs and critical thinking pedagogy

This meeting will allow us to build on the strong foundation already in place for the project to flourish to discuss and clarify its implementation by reviewing its objectives and calendar. This meeting is vital to the success of the project. Valuable time will also be set aside to observe and explore various practices at the Spanish school lesson observation and pedagogical discussions with staff. Our training focus is on Agenda 2030 and the importance of the SDGs as a whole. We will focus on practical critical thinking techniques that will help us enable students to explore the themes of the project. We will also discuss ways to embed the project into our curricula and discuss the businesses and external partners we may wish to engage with over the duration of the project. We will also discuss setting up the eTwinning project platform and blogs. From September 2019 until the meeting each partner school will:

- hold a staff meeting in school to explain the project

- ask for expressions of interest from staff and students

- undertake a common agreed baseline evaluation of knowledge of SDGs amongst students and staff

- set the logo competition for students

- introduce the SDGs to students

With regards the Spanish school hosting the first event it will also bring the global dimension to the school. During the meeting in Melilla:

- a logo for our project will be displayed and chosen from the logos partner schools will contribute

- speakers will talk about programs taking place in our city to achieve the SDGs:

Mr Paredes, Agricultural Engineer in Environmental Sciences, Coordinator of “Gloria Fortes Farm School”. We will visit the urban gardens.

Ms Moreno, Engineer in Chemistry, Head of the Quality and Natural Environment Division. Studies on an endemic sea gastropod in danger of extinction. The species is emblematic for the Mediterranean biodiversity conservation. We’ll visit Port Authority and see examples of the species.

Mr Bocanegra is the coordinator of the platform “Melilla on a bike", which campaigns to promote less polluting ways of moving around.

Mr Claro is responsible for the area of Nature of the organization “Guelaya”. We will go hiking along Río Nano, where we will enjoy endemic flora and plant trees to reforest Rostrogordo Pines Forest.

We will evaluate poverty in Melilla with European Network for the Fight against Poverty.

As our school is an “Eco-school” we will explain what the project consists of. Our gardening teachers will teach us how to make “compost”.

We will visit Victoria Grande Fortress and Rosario Bastion, awarded for their 100% LED technology and low-consumption energy.

We will visit the old town and the modernist triangle as examples of conservation of our architectural heritage.

We will visit the city incinerator plant which uses the energy of the burnt rubbish for its own functioning and sells the surplus to the local electricity company.

Week 17, 20.-24.4.2020

"Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal: Sharing of SDG 14 Water Best Practices

Students and staff will visit the Portugese partner school to share the outcomes of their research into the pollution of oceans SDG task set in Melilla and any actions resulting from their research.  This will be in the form of presentations or videos and possibly debates.  Sharing of outcomes will challenge stereotypes of country issues. Tasks that were agreed in Melilla for each meeting will also be presented/shared during the visit. There will be opportunities to discuss the next school based project activities and any matters arising from partner schools.  Students and staff will take part in various workshops/lectures and visits to places of interest relevant to the oceans theme.  Valuable time will be set aside to explore teaching and learning styles with colleagues at the Portugese school through lesson observation and pedagogical discussions.  This will also be a valuable opportunity to discuss and refine the evaluation process for the project.

Preliminary program for the Meeting in Portugal will include the following:

- Guest speaker - Lecture about Ocean protection – “Steps to a sustainable sealife”  by an expert of the Maritime Coast Guard, responsible for the security of the Portuguese North Sea Coast (maritime law enforcement, environmental protection, fisheries control,…).

- Visit to Porto de Leixões; Getting to know about the project  “Ocean free of residues” carried out by this entity in partnership with the international organization Waste Free Oceans.

- Boat trip along River Douro.

- Visit to the Nau Seiscentista in Vila do Conde, a typical boat from the16th century.

- Protected  Area of Esposende – visit to the beach and walk along the shore (Ecovia Litoral Norte).

- Visit to River Minho Aquamuseum in Vila Nova de Cerveira.

- Visit to the school Museum – learning about the evolution of maritime species.

- Visit to an exhibition focusing on sealife (ancient maps and science books) in the school library.

- Workshops – Art From Waste and Illustration of Maritime Species.

- Lessons observation and pedagogical discussions.

- Theater play based on a literary book related to the ocean.

- Pedagogical games about the theme “The Ocean Is Us” as a reference to our Portuguese history.

- Outdoor activities / sports in the Picoto Park in Braga.

Week 41, 5.- 9.10.2020

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion: Sharing of SDG 1 and best practices

The meeting in Reunion will be the occasion to study more closely the reality of poverty in this ultra-peripheral part of the E.U today, its historical foundation, and how poverty can impact sustainable development. Students will be asked to evaluate the reality of poverty in Reunion as a whole, and in their town/school, to comprehend more closely which statistical indicators can be used and what they mean, and to compare data with partner schools/regions/countries. They will be asked to study the links between this poverty and the historical context of Reunion as a former colony. Also, they will see the close link between poverty and gender issues. They will then be asked to investigate ways to fight poverty at the local level, and to commit to a volunteering project. Buying local will be focused on, as a way to encourage local agriculture and business and its role in fighting poverty. They will meet associations like Chancégal, which work on gender issues and their consequences in society (poverty, violence, harassment). Overconsumption and waste will be seen, and its paradoxical link with poverty. Specific days will be the focus of our activities: World Clean Up Day/International Day for the Eradication of Poverty/International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women/Fet Kaf Abolition of Slavery/ International Women’s Day. Guest speakers will be invited to the meeting: the president of Roulé Mon Zavirons, local representative of the World Clean Up Day; members of the Chancégal association; representatives of local volunteer groups (FondaKtion André Malet) as well as members of parliament and the Mayor of Les Avirons for a more institutional point of view. In the context of the social crisis of the Yellow Vests, local citizens will also be invited to share their points of view and ideas. Visits with our partners will be organized: to historic places of interest that highlight the island’s past as a colony and its impact on today’s society; to the Cuisine Centrale in Les Avirons, and to local markets: this will help study the reality of local sourcing of food products in Reunion. Volunteer groups will be visited. We will also plan to visit or to meet the Citizen Councils that have been recently set up, as well as the Department or Regional Councils.

Week 7, 15.- 19.2.2021

Laanila High School & Svenska Privatskolan, Oulu, Finland: Sharing of SDG 12 best practices

Students and staff will visit the Finnish partner schools to share the outcomes of their research into the consumption SDG task set in Melilla and any actions resulting from their research.  This will be in the form of presentations or videos and possibly debates.  Sharing of outcomes will challenge stereotypes of country issues. Tasks that were agreed in Melilla for each meeting will also be presented/shared during the visit. There will be opportunities to discuss the next school based project activities and any matters arising from partner schools.  Students and staff will take part in various workshops/lectures and visits to places of interest relevant to the consumption theme.  Valuable time will be set aside to explore teaching and learning styles with colleagues at the Finnish schools through lesson observation and pedagogical discussions.

Preliminary program for the Meeting in Finland will include the following:

- Lectures, discussions and workshops at Laanila High School and Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg on SDG 12 Best Practices

- A workshop for recycled clothes/textiles. Students will bring a used piece of clothing to Finland and in a workshop they’ll make something new of it

- A visit to Kiertokaari recycle center and waste combustion center

- A visit to forests nearby, for example Hailuoto or Pilpasuo

- An overnight visit to Pikku-Syöte, Pudasjärvi

- Indoor Wall climbing / Observatory / Snow shoe walking / Bow and Arrow

- The forest trail “Magical forest”

- Geocaching, Fatbiking, Basket Disk Golf

Tasks for the students:

- Plan an educational game/play to play in a forest during the visit to Pikku-Syöte where we will experience the tasks in real life

- Bring a piece of clothing with you to Finland

Guest speakers:

- A tour in a forest guided by a forest expert Anna Taskila

- Ansa Jokiranta: Forest of possibilities School Project in Finland (ansa.jokiranta@forestindustries.fi)

Week 40, 4.- 8.10.2021

Ysgol Dyffryn Taf, Wales: Sharing of SDGs Decent Work, evaluation & planning

In Wales the project themes will be integrated into the humanities curriculum for years 7, 8 & 9 in addition to being focused on by the Erasmus focus group in Years 10-13. They will also learn about the history behind key dates like international workers day on the 1st May each year and such key dates will be celebrated on a whole school basis to maximise project impact.

The focus for the Wales meeting will be better work for all. In preparation for the Wales visit we will work with the NGOs Oxfam and Antislavery in addition to the local coastguard to raise awareness amongst pupils of modern day slavery and trafficking issues in Wales and Europe/the Wider World, and what constitutes fair work for all. They will work with the charities to promote awareness of the issues to the School Community and they will write letters to their Local Assembly Member to raise awareness of the issue and urge them to promote fair work in the constituency area and at Wales level. Students from all visiting countries will be asked to prepare videos raising awareness of fair work issues in their respective countries to be shared during the Wales visit and guest speakers will be invited to the meeting to take part in lectures, discussions and workshops on Fair Work with the other attendees. Students will also take part in an art workshop focused on promoting fair work that can then be promoted in all schools.

During the Wales visit we will visit St Fagans, the Museum for Welsh Life to see how worker conditions in Wales have changed throughout history. We will take a tour of the the new building that was opened in 2019 to learn of their drive towards achieving environmental sustainability. We will also visit the Welsh Assembly to learn about the environmentally sustainable design of the building and visit the chambers. During the visit the students will deliver a letter to the Assembly Members written jointly by each of them outlining their wishes for the SDG goals we will have studied as part of the project.

A new Erasmus+ Project starting August 2019 - Introductions

Coordinator: Laanila High School 

The aim of the project is not only to introduce UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals to all our students, teachers, staff, and whole school community, but also to ambitiously implement a cornucopia of best practice by uniting our European schools in action. 

During the three-year-project we will introduce all the 17 Global Goals, focus on four of them and "create an army of goalkeepers” who will spread the change-choices even broader within our countries and Societies. 

The objectives are to develop pedagogy for critical thinking to equip students to research and actively work towards tackling the following four SDGs whilst developing critical thinking, communication, digital literacy and foreign language skills: 

Goal 1: Poverty 

Goal 8: Decent Work 

Goal 12: Responsible Consumption 

Goal 14: Ocean Pollution 

Partners: 

"Laanila High School", Oulu, Finland 

"Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg", Oulu, Finland

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion  "Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal 

"IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez", Melilla, Spain "Ysgol Dyffryn Taf", Whitland, Wales 

Introductions of our schools:

"Laanila High School", Oulu, Finland 

Laanilan Lukio is a high school of approximately 330 students and 25 teachers in the city of Oulu. Laanila is a member of the certified Green Flag Schools, UNESCO ASPnet Schools and CertiLingua Schools. We have an active Green Flag and UNESCO ASPnet group of students who plan and implement activities related to sustainable development tutored by teachers. 

Our recent themes have included co-operation with the communities in the neighbourhood, waste recycling and reducing energy consumption. Since 2011 we have also taken part in Comenius and Erasmus+ collaboration in three separate projects with altogether twenty-five other European countries. Our mutual partnerships in increasing students’ awareness on ecological as well as volunteering issues have been truly rewarding, beneficial and educating experiences. In addition to the Green Flag and UNESCO group, we have an active students' union which has enabled the students to improve their social environment by creating an encouraging, dissimilarities approving social atmosphere. The school has taken part in many projects related to active citizenship, for example organizing charity, taking part in the racism-free events in the City of Oulu and volunteering for kintergartens, old people's houses, primary schools and other local actors. We also offer courses in volunteering. The courses have been led by our own teachers and earlier also by an Oulu based Deaconess Institute, and the work is done for several local voluntary organizations such as The Red Cross, among others. The courses have consisted of theoretical studies and voluntary work during which students may e.g. work as a friend or a support person for mentally ill youth or single parent families, read newspapers for the elderly, go for walks with mentally disabled or visually impaired or help immigrants and refugees. Last year's course focused on senior citizens with whom students and teachers sang songs, played games, held quizes and completed "My Way" book on the life of each senior citizen involved in the project.

Our school can set an example for the other partner schools in volunteering for the good of the old and the young, the physically and mentally disabled as well as for the immigrants and refugees in our city as we already have experience of this from different school activities in previous years. Also the projects and good practices we have implemented with the university exchange students (Courses on Global Education) and the local Community College will be shared with our European school partners in this project. 

We have set up a team of ten teachers and we will  be responsible for co-ordinating the project as we have the necessary managerial and communications experience of this from previous Erasmus+ projects. The team of teachers involved in this project includes a wide range of relevant expertise including language/math teaching, drama, music+art, sport, IT, student counselling, institutional evaluation and school management. 

"Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg", Oulu, Finland

Svenska Privatskolan i Uleåborg (SPSU) is a Swedish-speaking school in the city of Oulu in Northern Ostrobothnia. The school was founded in 1859 and is one of the oldest schools in Finland. It is the northernmost school in Finland with Swedish as the language of instruction. The school has approximately 240 students aged 6 to 18. The school works in close cooperation with Svenska barnträdgården (Swedish-speaking kindergarten) which is located on the same premises. Many students start their schooling already in the kindergarten, culminating in a matriculation examination at the gates of adulthood.

"Lycée Antoine St-Exupéry", Les Avirons, La Reunion

Saint-Exupéry High School is situated in Les Avirons in south-west Reunion Island, an overseas French department in the Indian ocean. There are about 1100 students attending academic and vocational classes. Saint-Exupéry High School also includes a Post Graduate Vocational College with 100 students aged 18-22.

The school offers an international teaching environment with specialist classes in English and Spanish. These are optional courses for motivated students who wish to extend their foreign language learning, through the study of economics and social sciences in English, or history and

geography in Spanish. Independent certification through Cambridge University and the Cervantes Institute attest the level of proficiency of these students. Each year, the school receives native speaking language assistants who promote an authentic linguistic and cultural approach.

Regular exchanges with Australia (biannual school tours) are organized, as well as regular visits to metropolitan France and Germany.

The social context of our school is comparatively good. However, there are some educational issues here, as all over the island - like illiteracy, gender issues, ethnic determinism leading to inequality - that are globally more important than in most regions of metropolitan France. In fact, as an ultra-peripheral region of the E.U, Reunion’s geographical situation in the heart of the Indian Ocean makes it the only European region (along with Mayotte) in the southern hemisphere and probably the most isolated. In this way, our students hardly feel part of Europe and this project, by making them exchange with other Europeans, will give them a closer approach and a better inclusion with the mainland. Choosing to focus on SDG Goal 1 Eradication of Poverty makes sense – in an island where more than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line and unemployment is nearly 25%, we stand as one of the poorer regions of the E.U: addressing these issues is vital for our student community. The wider range of the SDG Goals is also a crucial part of our teaching: Réunion is fully concerned with sustainable development at all levels: political, social, environmental, educational. This project will be led by an experienced team of teachers and administration staff, who have already conducted a previous wide-ranging Erasmus+ project successfully. Expertise is shared, and does not depend on one single element but on a combination of staff. 

"Escuela sa de Miranda", Braga, Portugal 

Sá de Miranda School is situated in Braga, one of the youngest cities in Europe (European Youth Capital in 2012) but also with a vast historical and cultural heritage in the North of Portugal. The school has recently aggregated with a former group of schools located in a periferal area, being the head-school of the present School Group Sá de Miranda, which includes all learning levels, from kindergarten to high school.

Sá de Miranda school dates back to the 19th century, and has played an important role in the region ever since. It started as a boarding school for boys, but has been a state school for 183 years. It is now predominantly attended by teenagers from the outskirts of the city and surrounding rural areas.

The total number of students is around 2250, 770 of whom attending Scientific-Humanistic courses, 213 Vocational courses, 1228 Basic Education and 40 Adult Education in the evening.

Trying to cope with the challenges of such a heterogeneous school population, the institution’s priority is to foster the holistic development of all its members, by promoting personal and academic growth. Thus, its main goal is to educate proactive, creative and critical citizens, by providing high quality teaching, by helping students discover their talents and develop their competences and acquired knowledge, and by promoting a scientific and cultural exchange within the educational community. To reach these goals, the life of the institution must be based on a set of underlying values, such as the pursuit of excellence, integrity, solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity, effectiveness and good resource management.

"IES Juan Antonio Fernandez Perez", Melilla, Spain

IES Juan Antonio Fernández Pérez is a high school which teaches Compulsory Secondary Education to students aged 12-16, Baccalaurate to students aged 16-18 and vocational training in gardening, cooking, restaurant, travel agency and social integration. At the same time, we have a class intended for the inclusion of migrants into the regular system of education.Most of our students are bereber in origin (70%),many of them coming from disadvantaged areas, so some of them are prone to social exclusion and others are pupils with special education needs. At the age of 16, when students are finishing their compulsory education stage, there is a high rate of drop-offs from the educative system and 30% of students just leave education without their CGSEs or any kind of academic or vocational qualification. The participation of our centre in this project means one step more in our constant fight against early leaving and abandon from the Spanish system of education. 

In the current process of internationalization of our center, every joint action of our High School with another European centers is focused in acquiring different strategies to fight early leaving from the educative system, promoting social and cultural inclusion of immigrants in our center and enhancing school performance in our students from disadvantaged backgrounds or cultural or achievement gaps.

Being our center situated in Melilla, a Spanish city on the northern coast of Africa with 80.000 inhabitants, sometimes gives us a feeling of isolation from European mainstream pedagogic and didactic innovations so the participation in this project is a fine way for students and teachers to became aware of Europe, otherwise they would not stand a chance to get to know and enjoy other European educative experiences.In other words, they can by these projects,feel both the European and their own dimension. 

"Ysgol Dyffryn Taf", Whitland, Wales 

Dyffryn Taf is an 11-18 school in rural West Wales. 864 pupils attend the school which caters for all abilities, offering a wide choice of academic and vocational courses.  The school has a very large catchment area over 400 square miles drawing from a predominantly agricultural setting. 8,6% of pupils receive free-school meals and there are 17% of students on the SEN register.  The school is a naturally bilingual school with 18,8% of pupils speaking Welsh as the predominant language at home, and 19% speak Welsh fluently.  There is a Welsh medium form in each year group in key stage 3 and Welsh medium teaching is also available in humanities subjects in this key stage. The school caters for pupils representing a full range of academic ability and socio-economic background. There are currently 105 pupils with special educational needs, including 25 who have statements.

School priorities include raising standards in literacy, improving the quality of teaching and learning, developing middle managers, improving attendance and learner autonomy- we feel that involvement in this project will assist in meeting these priorities in an exciting new pan - European context.

The school takes an active and leading role in international work and bringing the global dimension to life for our students. We feel this to be particularly important as the school is located in an area where there is currently very little ethnic diversity. Our learners will almost certainly have to leave to find better employment opportunities and we feel it is important to encourage them to broaden their horizons as early as possible and embrace  and enjoy diversity.