"Our project has seeked to promote an active role of the students in the research of information, to improve their personal, professional and social competences , and teachers have been the facilitators. The project we have developed, called ""Approaching Europe and its Job Opportunities"", has laid the emphasis on the students' learning more about their own culture and labor situation, and those of our European countries.There are five partners in this project: four VET schools in four different European countries (Italy, France, Germany and Spain), whose students have played an active role in the exchange of information and creation of a FINAL GUIDE of good educational practices; and an Italian NGO with experience in coordinating and taking part in European projects.Through specific actions and commitments related to intellectual activities and, ultimately, learning through action (PBL - Project or Problem Based Learning Methodology), the project has aimed to train students, strengthen and increase their different skills (personal, social and professional), such as cooperation among students and the community that surrounds them, leading them in conflict resolution and interpersonal sensitivity and awareness to issues such as respect for multiculturalism, a sense of being part of a huge entity that is called Europe, the need for learning languages, the possibility of getting a job abroad, etc.We understand that the interpersonal behavior of young people is essential and it plays an important role in the acquisition of social, cultural and economic reinforcement of the community. Young people who do not show appropriate social behaviors experience isolation, selfishness, rejection and, overall, less happiness and personal dissatisfaction.Some of the specific activities that have been carried out in our project, both in the transnational meetings and when each partner is working in their own VET school, are the following:- Find information about students’ participation in several social fields: sports, culture, entertainment, etc.Initial diagnosis of the commitments in the personal and social settings the students show: study time, time spent on homework, time spent with family, friends, etc.- Gather the opinion of the companies on areas for improvement of FCT, monitoring and coordination.- Create of a common interschool network for finding employment opportunities.- Design a Website (starting point for interschool coordination and communication, and final website to give life and continuity to the project and / or social networks that could be generated).- Information and cultural guide that spreads best educational practices in the whole experiment carried out in each country.- Search services and internationalized job bank, created and maintained by the network of participating centers (second year).- Exchange experiences on previous technical and intellectual skills’ contests, organized to encourage and recognize innovation and entrepreneurship.- Visits to companies of the nearby environment, where students do their FCT periods (Job Training Companies). Organize visits to different places of interest in each community, according to the phase of the project: Town Hall, associations of companies, companies, youth associations, etc.).- Design, develop and evaluate the agenda of each meeting by the students of each organizing partner.In any case, each activity has had a person responsible for its proper organization, and the committee/work team in charge of activities’ development and monitoring has assessed and controlled the project implementation. Consequently, the activities have followed the guidelines explained in detail in the activities section of the planning.Each host partner has tried to integrate the partners-visitors in their communities as much as possible so that all the partners have a relatively deep knowledge of each other’s surroundings.The main result is the development of two work units based on the ABP methodology, which include the activities carried out, and which we hope will serve as an example in our teaching teams of different specialties.The impact affects the following actors:- The students of each center can know different labour areas and have the possibility to do internships in companies provided by partners, and even find a job.- European companies, because they can contrast the training and the preparation that they need on the part of the workers of the different countries.- Local and regional companies because they have the possibility of contracting European staff.- All the partner-centers see how this project supposes a special push to the center for the attractiveness that it implies for many of its potential users (companies, students, teachers, families, etc.)."
