The ‘Keep in Touch: Make Tourism Sustainable’ project has arisen from the desire, on behalf of all partner countries, to take action towards giving our young people the skills they need to create a sustainable future in a global world. The five communities involved in this project are located in seats of natural and cultural beauty, and so sustainable tourism is the perfect way to incite interest in the future of individual native territories as well as on the importance of a united Europe. In fact, partner communities are either already dependant on the tourism industry for their economies or have the potential of creating a sustainable tourism enterprise. For this reason, it is important for our European youths to learn how tourism can implement the sustainable development goals by learning from one and other as well as from teacher-experts and local NGOs who are passionate about their work and communities. The main aim of this project is to focus upon sustainable education and raise awareness of the environment and climate change. By introducing such an important topic into our curriculums, we aim to foster inclusive education and encourage a systematic and long-term learning perspective involving the whole school and even whole communities. Additionally, it will help overcome barriers and strengthen ties among partner countries and thus facilitate integration and communication within the European community itself. Moreover, it will cultivate learners' sense of initiative and sustainability as one of the key competences that is an EU and UNESCO concern and to make the formal and non-formal learning environment life more relevant for their personal and professional lives. In sum, the project aims to:1. Involve young people into positive sustainability and cultural activities of the country, to acquire students with skills for sustainability awareness initiatives in the world of Tourism, to enable access to the traditions, changes in the region, country, the European Union and the world;2. Provide varied knowledge needed for sustainability awareness;3. Educate sustainability, creativity, responsibility, diligence, integrity, achievement of the objective values needed for a responsible citizenship;4. Present the professional courses as a valuable alternative in which young people can not onlyachieve various competences but also, conclude their compulsory education and create conditionsfor a transition to working life.Partners from Italy, Greece, Romania, Croatia and Turkey were selected from previous Erasmus+ partnerships as well as from the eTwinning platform and the target group are students aged between 14 to18. Activities will be varied and focalised on sustainability. Firstly, all partners will use eTwinning as their central platform where they will plan and organise all activities as well as communicate and record all steps taken. Teaching/learning activities will be organized so students will work together in multinational and multidisciplinary groups. The creation of a single group, with members from different countries, cultures, genders, religions, and social and economic conditions, will work on transnational themes using eTwinning using a task-based learning perspective that will create an authentic community of practice, involving different strategies and methods with the same goal. The skills and competences that students acquire will be useful in different contexts nowadays and in future mobilities and experiences within Europe or worldwide where might find employees/employers from different cultures and different working conditions and methods.During the project a few final products will be prepared:1. An eBook and hardcopy creating an assembly of the research done by students throughout the project. It will include the best local, regional, national sustainable tourism practices;2. Commercials/advertisements/brochures about: local/ regional/ national sustainable hotspots and the tourism sustainability situation in each country;3. Sustainable tourism e-dictionary in partners’ languages.For educational purposes all the materials will be free and open to everyone. As a result, this partnership will not only help our learners to develop spoken skills in foreign languages and build their European citizenship but will raise their future social inclusion opportunities as well.Teachers involved will be given the opportunity to develop their language skills and learn from the teaching practices related to their subjects in the partner countries, how to incorporate innovative digital and ICT teaching tools in their practices and the value of task-based learning and social-constructive teaching methods. Moreover, partner communities will be better educated and informed on sustainability and the industry of sustainable tourism.

Current economic and social context in which we evolve is one of the factors we face in education. European's recent studies have demonstrated that there are still difficult situations we face. Students that come from social and economically-risk environments increasingly higher is the main external challenge to which students are exposed. The result is that students have increasingly greater disinterest regarding school in general, higher school dropout being an immediate consequence. To counter these issues, the school must define itself in terms of methods used in dealing with students. Usually, this redefinition is a lengthy process, which may include additional costs often difficult to provide. School should open to the society, in both directions: to take over what is useful in education and has been developed in non-formal environments, but also to let the society to take what is valuable in school. The results of our Project can be used as solutions reduce pressures on to many schools, students and their families, providing them medium and long-term solutions.We offer, by our tips and tricks that are part of our Intellectual products, suggestions that can be applied for the valorisation of external environment achievement, in terms of technology, both for schools, teachers and students. Project Priorities, selected in accordance with social and economic context we must face, are:A. Addressing underachievement in the basic skills of math, science and literacy through more effective, innovative teaching methodsB. Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage as well as to address all students from the lowest to the highest end of the academic spectrumC. Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective.According with these priorities, the main objectives proposed for the project are-school dropout decrease-increase the level of digital literacy, language, basic and transversal skills-increase of vocational education graduates, employed during the first year after graduation-increase the number of graduated students that follow tertiary studies, equally boys and girls-increase teachers' digital literacy, skills to use mobile devices in formal and non-formal education, building teachers ‘leadership capacity, interest for professional development-parents' increased confidence aiming school activityThe six schools in the project have a different profile, both in terms of the economic environment evolves, and student interest or skill level and their aspirations. The schools in Rhodes and Istanbul have a predominantly theoretical profile, preparing students for tertiary education, while the other four schools have a varied profile, both theoretically and professionally, students being mostly employed after graduation. The common point is the interest that we have, to adapt the school to the demands of society and counteract threats to which we are subject, largely the same. The University of UMinho, as an academic educational provider, was the expertise adviser for the project.The project addressed directly to 180 students and their families and to 84 teachers of the seven partners. The activities were conducted online and in the framework of transnational meetings. These planned activities were:6 Blended mobility of school learners, each for 5 days, with 5 students and 1 accompanying person per school.6 Short-term joint staff training events, each for 5 days, with 2 teachers for each partner.2 Multiplier Events, first of them hosted by Maia school in partnership with UMinho, for 100 attending persons, and the second, at Focșani, for 50 persons.3 Transnational Project Meetings, to organize project activities, monitoring and evaluation are planned, attended by two representatives of each partner.The results of the project are of three types. 3 approved and done intellectual outputs, from the total we proposedTangible results, like logo, posters, documents for participants selections, Facebook pages, partners’ blogs or website, video presentations and tutorials, newsletters, organisational and mentoring of the project meetings and other activities documents, documents for learning/teaching/training activities, reports, brochure and web information, surveys and analysis, promotions and dissemination materials .Intangible results-a change of students’ perception for their own education, and improving teacher quality performance.Long-term impact of the project is the contribution, for the partners, to their capitalization, in the European context. For students and teachers, the impact is in terms of skills developed and through the perspective of a directly approach to their education in terms of learning throughout life.

"The project ""Educating citizens - learning democracy through social action"" started in 2017 with a description from the Eurydice report: “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017” in mind: Europe faces important challenges. Socio-economic problems, violent extremism and a lack of trust in democratic processes threatens shared European principles of respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance and non-discrimination. When summarizing the project in 2021 we can add another challenge that has affected our societies and project; the Covid 19-pandemic.Citizen education and supporting young people to become active, informed and responsible citizens are important missions for schools around Europe. Traditional learning methods are not enough to activate our students as democratic citizens. Interaction between school, students and society, where the students make assessments, discussions and activities is a prerequisite.The project addressed the priority Development of high-quality skills and competences with a twofold aim, discovered through our schools ́ needs analyses. The main objective was to develop social and civic competences among our students by taking them through a learning journey that completes their social studies and prepares them for active participation in social and political life. It also aimed at providing a structured and consistent methodology and tool kit for teachers who would like to teach active citizenship and educate young citizens who can be engaged members of a sustainable society.The “Citizenship Education at School in Europe - 2017” report identified four broad areas in order to support students to become active citizens. The four competence areas are: interacting effectively and constructively with others; thinking critically; acting in a socially responsible manner; and acting democratically. These areas were the framework of our project. To develop our students' knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in these four areas, in order to become active citizens, was the main objective of our project. To work with these four areas we chose to use some of the Active Citizens Learning Journey as presented by the British Council as well as other relevant activities. The project had two main objectives: The first was to prepare students for active citizenship by performing a social action. The second was to create a tool kit for teachers with concrete methods on how to work on active citizenship.The four areas mentioned above worked as themes during the project, and gave structure to the activities during the work, both in between as well as during the mobilities. The project was built on five major steps which led the students towards active participation in their local community in terms of a social action. Each step consisted of several different activities; lectures, workshops, discussions and reflections. The first step was ME, focusing on to formulate a strong sense of identity and culture with increased self-confidence and self-awareness and on the importance of holding assumptions lightly. The second step was ME and YOU and was built around dialogue. The learning outcomes was to practice active listening, learn the ability to support, and learn and share through dialogue, practice questioning skills and to value different perspectives. The third step was WE and focused on the local community and to identify challenges or problems in the nearby area. The fourth step was all about PLANNING a social action to attack the identified problem. The last step in the students' learning journey was to perform the SOCIAL ACTION.The project focused on doing and was intrinsically encouraging participation and engagement. The learning outcomes of the project have featured changed attitudes towards local and global communities, towards participatory democracy and engagement. One student who participated in the project wrote: “During this project, I have learned that students can make change, we just have to get involved and spend time to create change.” The challenges identified by the students were; domestic violence, homelessness, families who can’t afford lunch during school breaks and drug use among young people due to mental illness. All of these challenges in our local communities got worse during the pandemic. It was clear that the students had identified one of the weakest links in their societies, which encouraged them to go on with their social actions despite difficulties due to lock downs and closed societies.The results from the project were more than we could hope for; the students learned not only how to interact, to be critical and to act for real change. They also learned that their voices are heard, that they actually can make a change and how to do it. The skills and experiences they gained in this project will empower them to become active citizens in the future."