"The Erasmus+ KA2 Partnership ""3T-EH"" connected - and still connects as we speak - 3 schools with a shared ambition to Train Today Tomorrow's ECO Hairdressers! Secondary VET schools in Iceland (Reykjavik), Finland (Helsinki) and Flanders (Ghent) decided to join forces to face the challenges of the Hairdressing business. All three of them consider themselves as reference schools in their country in training professional hairdressers. As customers/clients the last couple of years got far more demanding than in earlier days, this project tried to train and prepare future hairdressers to meet the new standards. As the needs of the clients changed, so did the profile, the competences and the skills of the future hairdresser. Thanks to EU support the schools involved in this project have been able to exchange good practicises and innovative approaches. In the second year of the two year program, young aspirant hairdressers from Flanders, Iceland and Finland were invited in the partnership schools to follow a 3 days course with training and workshops."

During the project we created a guidebook which covers information about the participating countries. Now, the guidebook can be used by not participating school classes to learn about the partner schools and their countries.The project was split into five phases: Phase1: a)Expectations and knowledge about the other countries' culture; b)EU-basic information about bodies and institutions; advantages of the EU for its inhabitants; Phase 2: Social lives of students from participating countries and legal age for young people (age of majority, rights and liabilities connected with it, free time activities, hobbies); Phase 3: School types of the participating countries (from preschool to university); showing opportunities after graduating from a vocational school (searching the available workplaces on the local labour market etc) Phase 4: The most important religious and national holidays of each country; Phase 5: Evaluation of the project, comparing the expectations about the countries with the experienced reality; During the phases 1-4, students created learning material about the different topics and presented it to the project partners during the mobility meetings (short-term visits of the parnter countries). Mobility meetings took place at the end of the phase 2 - 4. Furthermore, class attendances, visits related to the training places for the vocational courses and sightseeing activities took place, too. One impressive and teaching sightseeing activity was, for example, the visit of the memorial in Auschwitz, Poland. Being at that place with students and teachers from different European countries demonstraded the importance of the EU. At the same time, being at that place as one group symboled all the positive developments which have taken place in Europe during the last decades. Furthermore, the students and teachers visited German training companies to learn about the German Dual System and the posibilities and challenges of the European labour market during the meeting in Germany. The students stood in youth hotels. Whenever possible, students form different countries were mixed in the hotel rooms to have as many situations for communication as possible. During each mobility meeting a dinner at a host family's house was organized for the participants by the host country. It helped students to observe a real-life situation in a host family and gave the chance to taste different kinds of food. At application time we planned to send 63 people in total (45 students and 18 teachers) to the mobility meetings (short-term visits of the parnter countries). We outperformed that number: We were able to have 78 mobilities in total (58 students and 20 teachers).The teachers and the students worked in an international team and improved their intercultural and language skills during the project. All of the students were visiting vocational schools and preparing to start working after leaving school. They were aged between 16 - 21 years, several students had an immigration backround. The students had contact with partner students via facebook, e-mail or WhatsApp before and after mobility meetings. Before each meeting the students had to contact each other to gain information for the introduction which took place on the first day of each meeting. The students always had to introduce students from another country to the whole group. Because of all the above mentioned activities, participating students and teachers could learn about the culture and everyday-life situations of the participating countries as well as the EU and its importance. The different school types and educational systems, opportunities after graduating from a vocational school, national holidays and traditions, the social lives of the students as well as age of majority and rights and liabilities were the topics. At the beginning of the project a project website was created. Information about the different phases, including the learning material for each phase and photos are available on that website. Furthermore, the worked out guidebook can be downloaded from the website: http://erasmus.zsot.lubliniec.pl/By this project, we aimed that participants learned about the opportunities of the EU, the European values, cultures, languages and importance of education for working in the EU. Many students gained their first international experiences because of the project. This project + improved the students' language skills and intercultural skills, + improved students' ICT skills, + improved and increased the mobility of students and educational staff across the EU, + enhanced the partnerships between schools in different European Union countries, + improved pedagogical approaches and school management for the teachers. We are happy that the partners consisted of countries from different regions with different religions and cultures as well as different economical power. Our partnership illustra

The project entitled European Collaboration on Radon Measurement (EURA) started in October 2018 and born from the idea of monitoring radon gas in different parts of Europe. Radon gas (Rn) is a radioactive element that occurs naturally in earth and rock, well water and in some building materials. The gas combined with other factors such as pollution can increase the risk of disease in human body, therefore it is under the authority’s attention. Each country has general guidelines about the permissible concentration values of radioactive elements.Four upper secondary schools, Nordahl Grieg (Bergen, Norway), Erasmo da Rotterdam (Nichelino, Italy), Spyken (Lund, Sweden) and The Technical College (Reykjavik, Iceland) participated to EURA. The choice of partners was dictated by several factors such as technology degree applied to teaching and learning, development and implementation of research and practical methodologies in the school curriculum, technical facilities existing in the schools. All the schools have previously participated to international Erasmus Projects and have good connection with local universities and research institutions. The main participants were students and teachers directly involved in the project, while additional participants were students from other classes, regional municipalities and authorities, public offices supporting the project logistically for placement of radon dosimeters in different locations. Scientific support was provided by local universities and radon experts. The total amount of participants was approximately around 200 persons. The project had several goals, namely a comparative analysis of radon distribution in local regions of the four participating countries, didactical methodology exchange, implementation of research and technology in teaching to increase and promote learning among students, dissemination of the results.EURA has resulted in two intellectual outputs (O1-O2) covering descriptive procedures and methodology for theory teaching and experimentation, instructive videos edited by students, and a scientific article to be submitted to peer review, The project results are sustainable since methods and procedures can be easily performed and reproduced by other classes. The radon data collected in this project can be used as starting material for further statistical analysis. Materials and methods are available on Erasmus+ dissemination platform and on the project website.The project had a relevant social impact due to a close collaboration among the schools and the local communities. In fact, many private and public buildings have been monitored over one year’s period. Finally, local authorities and private persons have been informed and made aware about the registered radon values.

Day in, day out, we see the impact of our modern-day way of life on the environment, an impact we have been ingnoring for decades. Luckily more and more people are realizing that we need to act now and that we can all help to reduce our impact on the environment. Today there are challenges for each and everyone of us, in each and every field. More and more hairdressers and beauticians see and feel the growing impact of chemical products not only on the environment but in their private lives as well: on their hands, arms, respiratory tracts, etc. They, sometimes radically, change their path and choose to start working with eco-friendly non-toxic products, followed or urged by their customers. This project directly supports many of the goals in the EU Agenda 2030 for Sustainable development. By developing and taking into use more ecologically friendly methods and substances in the hair and beauty sector we reduce the ecological footprint of the industry at the same time as workers and clients in the hair and beauty sector do not get exposed to toxic or damaging substances. All partners - being reference schools in their own country - share the same ambition to focus on this eco-friendly path as we think it should be our main goal and common duty to prepare the next generation of professional hairdressers and beauticians for the eco-friendly challenges lying ahead. The last two years, in our 'Training Today Tomorrow's ECO Hairdressers' project, we focused on the exchange of good practices and innovative approaches in haircare. Today, as demand, interest and awareness are still growing, all parties feel the need and desire to extend and broaden our project. We would like to introduce an additional partner, Srednja Frizerska Sola in Ljubljana, to join our project, thus adding a lot of expertise and know-how when it comes to hair treatments and the use of natural oils. We would also like to broaden our scope to hair AND skincare as we feel both fields go hand in hand and cannot be seen apart from one another.Our project focuses on two main objectives:- We broaden and deepen knowledge, competences and skills of teachers and students in eco-friendly hair- and skincare. Skillful teachers and learners lead to a modern and professional school environment with integrated good practices and innovative methods and approaches.- Development of new innovative, eco-friendly education courses on 1) Ecological hair colouring, 2) Ecological Haircare and 3) Ecological skincare. We see these programmes as a result of our benchmark, a collection of the best and most recent innovations and practices in both haircolouring/hair and skin treatment.In the first year of this project the first 2 meetings/activities (to be held in Gent in autumn 2020 and Helsinki in spring 2021) will deal with the practical organisation of the other 4 meetings. Two teachers (not necessarily the same) of each school will meet twice to prepare the student workshops/education programmes focusing on the exchange of experience and know-how, the development, transfer and implementation of innovative practices, the practical organisation of the workshops/courses and the concluding dissemination seminar. During the third meeting in the first project year and all 3 meetings during the second project year (to be held in all 4 participating cities) our attention shifts to our learners as we transfer experience, know-how and innovative practices from teachers/experts to learners. Our focus will be on the practical part of the job. It is important for our learners to do, experience, feel, test and treat people in practice. We also take into consideration mixing learners from different cultural backgrounds and emphasize learning of the culture in the spare time at each workshop week. Six students from each school will take part in every new educational course for five days. These vocational education students are primarily aged 17+ and have sufficient English language skills to take part in the project. As we aim to reach a broad dissemination, students cannot take part in project weeks more than once.The impact and long term benefits of our project - and more specifically our education programmes - will lead to:- the increase of quality of education and training, combining higher levels of excellence with increased opportunities for all, bearing in mind it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for the majority of our learners, not in the least from a financial and social-cultural point of view.- education better aligned to the needs of and opportunities offered by the labour market (specifically the sector of hair and skincare) and closer links to (potential) business partners and clients.- improved skills and competences, not only job-related but also entrepreneurship, an increased competence in foreign languages, a greater understanding to social, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity and last but not least an increased environmental awareness

<< Background >>Recent studies have pointed out that during lockdown, teachers have suffered burnout from having to adapt (in record time) in order to provide online classes (Besser et al., 2020) and also according to some studies, stress levels were already high among teachers before the onset of the pandemic (Hadi et al., 2009; Teles et al., 2020), This stress may lead to symptoms of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance as a consequence of the increased workload resulting from home teaching.Moreover, previous studies have found that working from home using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can create feelings of tension, anxiety, exhaustion, and decreased job satisfaction (Cuervo et al., 2018), and remote teaching is the only choice in times of a pandemic for teacher-training staff. Besides, the lack of clarity and a rush to online teaching has posed a great challenge and creates problems for the entire school-teaching community. Therefore, returning to the classroom beyond being a return to normality seems to have become a new focus of uncertainty for teachers. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have a long-lasting impact on teachers and teaching activities and, as a consequence, on learners.Further, it is important to safeguard the emotional health of teachers since, as a recent study by De la Fuente et al. (2020) highlights, teacher–student relationships are also stressors for the student, and the teacher’s behavior predicts the emotional well-being and commitment of the students, which are also important factors for reducing their stress levels.These needs enforce us to draw attention to teachers’ psychological well being as a public school that gives importance to their teacher staff. They should be a better position to put in place the relevant educational jobs in regard to coping with the return to school during this pandemic. It will have effects in a wide open space that the higher level of stress on teacher-training staff means the less effective learning environment. It leads the whole community to have a lack of education in various subjects. Hence , the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional well-being of teachers is a major challenge that needs to be tackled by both the public-nonpublic educational community and the entire society.<< Objectives >>Firstly, Boost Yourself ‘s main objective is to make the participants aware of their own burnout level and observe burnout management methods in different countries and lead participants to think about solutions for burnout management and try to minimize it by workshops, studying various stress management methods, academic and rich-quality LTT activities by the mentorship of psychological experts in each participant institution and their local area. Boost Yourself wants to provide the necessary framework for participants in different countries to collaborate about how to manage with their stress and exchange the good practices. Boost Yourself wants to transfer these outcomes to the non-involved participants at the partner institutions, local-national-international related organisations by the dissemination and visibility activities such as the handbook, virtual Minecraft World and local workshops. Boost Yourself aims at to improve participants’ knowledge of foreign cultures and communication skills in English. Besides, It will also lead them to develop intercultural understanding, appropriate respect, tolerance and organisational teamwork skills. Finally, It wants to create awareness about Erasmus+ projects and European identity and beyond.<< Implementation >>By the approval of the project, the psychological expert of each team will conduct Maslach Burnout Inventory to the participants, reconduct it at the end of the project, observe and report the difference between them. There will be a kick-off meeting in May 2022. There will be only 4 virtual Transnational Meetings, so as to prevent the unnecessary travel because of both Covid 19 and Carbon emission of so many travels. Instead there will be 5 online LTT evaluation meetings after the each LTT and 2 report writing meetings, at the middle and end of the project. TPMs will be in May 2022, in December 2022, in March 2023, in December 2023. There will be 5 LTTs for 5 teacher-training staff from each partner school (Poland, Iceland, Portugal, Lithuania ,Turkey). First LTT will be in Portugal in June 2022 and It will study “Arttherapy” and help the participants to be aware of their stress level by its school psychologist and local experts.Second LTT will be in the Iceland, in September 2022. It will study “Guided Imaginery” by the help of their art therapist who is an expert.They are going to teach us how to make progress on stress management and motivational areas using this therapy in practice.Third LTT will be in Lithuania in June 2023 and will deal with “ Canistherapy” and help the participants develop a healthier and more positive mental state through this therapy.Fourth LTT will be in Poland in September 2023 dealing with “Transcendental Meditation”, and will attempt to create positive emotional changes in attitudes of the participants. Fifth LTT will be in Turkey in March 2024 and will contribute the target topic studying “Mindfullness” to cope with the stress as they have experienced psychologist in their team.In each LTT, There will be workshops, dramas, cultural activities, roleplays prepared by the host team and their local experts beforehand but the other partners will study the topic before the LTT for being readiness. A handbook and virtual Teachers Wellness Center on Minecraft Education Edition will be developed part by part in each LTT about the LTT topic and completed at the last LTT.<< Results >>First, Boost Yourself will create awareness about burnout management on the teachers, the participating schools, local- national-international schools. Then, participants will seek ways of coping with stress by studying various burnout management methods during the LTTs and they will transfer these outcomes to their colleagues at their own institution, local- national related organisations by dissemination and visibility activities such as the handbook, Minecraft material and local workshops. It will lead the entire teachers to boost themselves. Participating institutions and the other organisations will learn how to tackle the Covid 19 psychological challenges. Their teaching learning environment will be affected by this well being that psychologically boosted teaching-training staff will seek new-funny-innovative approaches for learners and enrich their educational environment which means improvement of the organisations in this area. ICT experts of each team will create joint social media accounts of Boost Yourself for the dissemination and visibility activities, try to reach many followers and share posts about stress management methods, LTT news by the help of psychologists of each team. It will lead a large community to be aware of stress management methods that a serious number of people need these approaches in this pandemic procedure and even after. Participants will not only come across different European cultures and beyond and also gain multiculturalism, transnational respect, coherent. Finally, They will improve their communication skills in English and identify different languages, European identity and beyond.