The main idea of our project was to make participants value their rich natural and cultural heritage, by seeing it not only as part of a culture but as a source of employment and wealth. The four participant schools (from Latvia, Poland, Italy and Spain) share some common conditions: all of them are situated in areas in which, for different reasons, population is ageing day by day and young people have very few possibilities to find jobs or to run a business. It is really important to make students aware of the huge potential their heritage contains, and provide them with additional knowledge about experiences that are successfully working in different places around Europe, in order to show them that perhaps they can find a way for their future career exploiting their own culture and natural resources. At the beginning of the project, students were aged between fifteen and seventeen. Children from different social strata and with special needs were included. A group of 90 students and 15 teachers were the most directly involved participants, specially in the Learning, Teaching and Training activities. However, many other students and teachers in each school collaborated in the development of the programme and benefited from the intercultural exchange fostered by our project. Students did research about the traditions in each area. They began focusing on a common thematic block, related to traditional cuisine and local produce: what was seasonally harvested, elaboration of food and drink, recipes, special dates… They shared their findings in the Twinspace pages and established discussions comparing traditions and creating an intercultural dialogue. In addition, the events that took place in each country have been focused on specific points related to the possibilities of each area to make students discover economical perspectives of their heritage: beekeeping in Poland and in Spain, traditional crafts in Latvia, experiential sustainable tourism in Italy, perspectives of commercializing quality local produces in Spain and traditional sports in Spain and Italy. Because of the pandemic, the Latvian mobility was held in a virtual way. Thanks to the effort of Latvian students and teachers, the rest of the partners were allowed to approach Latvian traditions. Each one of the mobility programmes helped participants to deepen their understanding of the diversity of the European heritage and its potential. They also gave participants the chance to meet young people and colleagues from other nationalities, to visit other European countries, to exchange points of view, ideas, new methods… Participants developed fundamental skills, such as linguistic (especially improving the ability of communicating in a foreign language, English) and ICT skills. Teachers and students have created presentations, videos, quizzes… using different types of digital tools. At the beginning of the projects, teachers received training on creating and managing surveys and on designing attractive digital products. Teachers also exchanged experiences about “cooperative learning” during the Staff Training Event in Spain.Students were involved in all the stages of the project, especially in the preparation and the organization of the mobilities. They created presentations about their town and their culture and showed them to the visitors (or to the rest of the partners, in the virtual mobility) The students’ entrepreneurship has been strengthened: they contributed to develop several activities during the visits. Many activities used the “learning by doing” methodology, such as cooking recipes from different countries, practising traditional sports, singing and dancing traditional music.Among the tangible results we can highlight the Blog and the Twinspace. The Blog offers complete information about the project, the activities, participants… Some pages in the Twinspace are dedicated to a “Virtual Museum”, with cards presenting and describing relevant objects from each country. At the end of the project, a brochure summarizing our goals and achievements was printed. These results will remain available and open to everyone interested in our topics in our blog “Our heritage, our wealth”.The impact of our work has surpassed our schools’ narrow framework to reach a wider audience in our local society. We reached different target audience profiles in our dissemination (families, local governments, associations, companies...) This program has brought each partner school considerable profit in the educational field with the development of skills and the deepening of teachers’ knowledge. Pupils have learnt from professional knowledge and have gained awareness of potential careers related to cultural heritage. Through interaction with the partner schools, there has been reciprocal influence at European level, while strengthening at the same time the sense of belonging to a common European territory and the capacity for cross-border cooperation.

An eTwinning program on the area's river that has been successfully implemented by the Greek school in the past as well as teaching in the Greek language course on the need to protect the language and culture of Europe's smaller populations have been the reason for the design of the Erasmus+ program. The students of the Greek school and especially those who come from families with a different culture from the dominant one (students from immigrant families) showed enthusiasm for the implementation of the program and worked in cooperation with their classmates from the Turkish school (with whom they had previously implemented a common cultural program) to find partners through the eTwinning platform. In the selection of schools, efforts were made to cover different natural environments in Europe, different cultures and languages of populations that do not belong to the most culturally strong countries in Europe. Schools with a certain percentage of students from immigrant families were also preferred, in order to take advantage of the special cultural background of these students for the implementation of the program.After the group of partners has been appointed, students from all partners schools worked together for about four months to design the program under the guidance of their teachers. The objectives of the project concern:1. the study of the language, popular culture, literature and art of the countries participating in the program as well as the students of each local community who come from different cultural backgrounds,2. the study of the river/ lakeside natural environment,3. the study of the value of the river / lake for the local community of each area,4. the examination of the degree to which the development projects of the river / lake of each area are carried out in terms of sustainable development and protection of the natural environment.The implementation of the project will be carried out with the guidance of specialists in each professor's field and with the participation of parents and relatives of students. The aim of the activities is to highlight the particular cultural identity of the participants and, through the search for common elements, to address this peculiarity as part of the common European heritage. The program will be attended by 10 teachers from each school and the students of each school are interested in getting involved. Students' parents and relatives will also be assisted. Twenty-two students of each school will visit the other schools to collect the material necessary for the activities and present the work that will have been done. The activities to be implemented will concern:1. the study of the flora of each region and the creation of a phytology with samples of plants, flowers and herbs of each region.2. the communication with specialists involved in the protection of the natural environment as well as with representatives of companies operating in the area, 3. the writing of a common dictionary of the languages of students participating in the program, including words related to water,2. the writing of an anthology with legends, myths, literary works referring to the river / lake of the region,3. the creating of an album with folk art, paintings and river / lake-inspired sculptures,4. the collaborative writing of a common history and painting by the pupils themselves on the river / lake.Objective of activities with cultural content is to emphasize the common elements in the projects to be examined, so that pupils can understand the common origin or the mutual cultural influences between the nations of Europe. It is expected that these activities will recognize the value of the particular culture of each pupil and thus make it easier for them to join the school and local community. At the same time, the value of the common European heritage and the need to protect it will be highlighted as a means of ensuring the peaceful coexistence of Europe's nations whether they are members of the European Union or not.The publication of the results of the program and the material that will have been produced on the website of the program as well as the participating in activities and attending relevant cultural events of local people will extend the outcomes of the project out of school to the wider local community. Finally, the projects that will be produced can be enriched in the future after the completion of the program with new material that will add new pupils attending the school and coming from a different cultural environment as migration to European countries is strong and will result in more and more students from different cultural backgrounds attending European schools. This will extend the long-term benefits of the program in the future.

The program 'Immigration, Stereotypes and Racism' came to the center of attention of the political timeliness in Greece, Europe and the whole world just a few months after the submission of our application.The shift of attitude towards these issues and the preparation of our societies for the reception of immigrants, gained major significance, fighting against racist behavior and abrogating stereotypes which are found in xenophobia and intolerance.Students 15 - 18 years old and teachers from six European countries cooperated in this journey, whose main aim was 'human'. Greece, Portugal, Spain, Latvia,Turkey and Italy share many common features regarding immigration, as all of them have experienced immigration of their native population towards other countries and have constituted and still constitute countries of reception of immigrants and refugees.Besides the obvious human dimension of the issue, the fundamental keystones, around which all activities evolved, were the reinforcement of the disadvantaged students (therefore immigration was the background of our thought), the reinforcement of digital skills and forging an active citizen.Led by the triptych knowledge, sensitization and action-effect, we materialized our goals, which aimed both at countable and non-countable results. Through empathy our students sympathized with the tragedy of other people, who are forced to expatriate in any period. Students clarified different notions and realized the necessity for respect towards human rights as well as for undertaking initiatives, in order for them to contribute to resolving issues which concern their microcosm as well as the whole society. Within the context of formal and informal learning, contemporary and non-contemporary education, through collaborative learning, students evolved their creative and critical capabilities and simultaneously reinforced their linguistic abilities.Our aim was first and foremost, the groups of students of the Erasmus team of all schools, along with the teachers of pedagogical teams. In a systemic way, the whole school communities of students and teachers, along with the wider local communities, parents and local authorities became receptors of our results. Finally, informing and updating various authorities and services who were linked to our topic, was a constant and uninterrupted process, along with the local authorities of every rank, the supervising authorities of education and the Mass Media of Information (local and national) .Our common activities were organized either in person during our mobilities or through virtual meetings. Students were initially acquainted and interacted before every mobility through etwinning platform. In particular, they enriched our website with material from each one of the program's stages, aiming at the interaction of the participants, the diffusion of our results and the long-term impact and they created and promoted our logo through electronic voting. They interviewed immigrant students and employees, they photographed, painted and organized a photography and painting exhibition, they participated in various experiential games and wrote a script, they directed and took part in theatrical games, they produced videos and organized a multicultural festival, they studied and presented extracts from a theatrical play, they studied and presented the history and legislative framework of immigration in each country, they created comic books and completed various questionnaires of need detection and assessment.Furthermore, our national teams individually carried out various activities for the preparation and organization of various mobilities, and within the framework of the diffusion of our results to various destinations. An artistic competition, speeches, interactive events, and the program's reaching out to the wider society, all took place many times and in numerous ways.All these activities aimed even further, through art and culture, for us to be able to create the necessity to each one of our receptors, to guard the rights of every human, and of course the rights of immigrants/refugees, who are entitled to a peaceful place of residence, under dignified circumstances. Besides, it is good to remember that anyone of us could have been in their place. Our further aim was, being knowledgeable of the legislative framework and using conventional and digital means for distant intervention, to illustrate ways in which political circumstances can be democratically formed in conjunction. Finally, our goal was to bring to the surface the fact that European civilization is a living, dynamic creation of the civilizations which constitute Europe. Therefore, Europe has the ability to humanely welcome new populations, who migrate due to necessity and to ensure a peaceful environment for everyone, Europeans, 'native people' and newcomers, where the human and civilization are the fundamental priorities, as a timeless answer to the riddle of Sphinx.