NEWSLETTER – 7

SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

PROJECT

READY FOR OUR LIVES 2015 – 2018

PARTNERS

Obchodni akademie Karviná, s.r.o

KARVINA / CZECH REPUBLIC

Istituto A. Volta

NICOSIA / ITALY

Riga Secondary Shift School N#9

RIGA / LATVIA

Kedainiai Sviesioji Gymnasium

KEDAINIAI / LITHUANIA

Srednja Ekonomsko – Poslovna Šola - Koper

KOPER / SLOVENIA

Agrupamento de Escolas Alexandre Herculano - Porto

PORTO / PORTUGAL

Özel Adalya Anadolu Lisesi

ANTALYA / TURKEY

Our School: Obchodní akademie KARVINÁ

Who we are:

Headmistress: Slavka KRYSTOVÁ FLORKOVÁ

Teachers: Martin FROLÍK, Zdeňka PARCHANSKÁ,

Students: Aneta KNEISLOVÁ, Nelly VLACHOPULOSOVÁ, Alexandr BÍLEK,

Lucie BENEDIKTOVÁ, Barbora ŠTĚRBOVÁ, Nela SMIGOVÁ,

Radka DEBNÁROVÁ, Lukáš LUKŠ, David NASTULCZYK, Ondřej

PONČA Valerie MATUSZKOVÁ, Kristýna KOCYBALOVÁ a

Kateřina LÁTOVÁ.

Our activities:

September – we started our new school year and also project year very actively, first

we went to our partner school in Antalya for a short meeting, to evaluate the run of the

project, meet the new Turkish coordinator, discuss tasks and work for the last project

year. There were three of us who visited the Turkish partner school – Mr.Martin Frolík,

the project coordinator and Mrs.Slavka Krystová Florková and Mr.Michal Florek – the

owners of the Czech school.

We also continued with our local activities – 16 students of our school together with

two teachers – Mr.Martin Frolík and Mrs.Zdeňka Parchanská took part in an excursion

to Zerlina Eco-farm and to the “Wooden village” of Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. The topic

of the first excursion was “other aspects of entrepreneurship”, the topic of the second

one then “promotion, marketing, entrepreneurship in tourism”.

Eco-farm Zerlina – a small farm in the Hážovice village which breeds dark-fur goats,

produces ecological food, such as milk, cheese etc. During the excursion we learned

how they take care of goats, what regulations they need to follow, how they milk the

goats, how they make cheese from goat milk and how they do their marketing, sale,

promotion etc.

Ecological farming is becoming more and more popular in our country, so here in the

eco-farm we could learn all about it.

Wooden village in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm – a place which describes the life in the

region decades ago. We not only visited the wooden houses in the Museum in nature

but also learned about what clothes people used to wear, what was their life like etc. At

the end of the excursion we tasted famous local cakes called “frgál” as well as other

traditional sweets.

October – Before going for the meeting in Riga we made all the presentations and did

all necessary preparatory work. The meeting itself is described in our e-magazine then.

November – After coming back home from Riga we took a short rest but then

continued with our project work. Our students wrote their narrations and we also made

and published the next issue of the e-magazine. Here are two narrations – by Nelly and

Nela.

“On October 10-16, 2017, I was lucky to attend a meeting in Riga. I am very happy I could be part of

the team and experience how people live in another country, what their behavior is, what sights they

have in the city, what their traditions and customs are. There were a lot of things and strange things

for us, one of many things being, living and eating, because each of us likes his own home. About the

project I would like to say a lot of positive things, especially the opportunity to speak English, to visit

new places, to know a new country and friends. I applaud the Riga organization, just a shame that it

was not more of a programme. I enjoyed the meeting despite bad weather. The hotel was amazing, I

think a better hotel could not even be. We had a perfect breakfast for the whole week, lunches were

worse because they were in the school cafeteria. I liked the last day most since it was a funny

program, dance, entertainment and a Swedish table. Thank you for the wonderful experience I will

remember the whole week only in good”.

by Nelly Vlachopulosová

“We spent one week in Latvia in the capital city called Riga. I lived in the host family and it was

absolutely fantastic. I visited the square, the old town in Riga, Town hall, some shopping centre local

restaurants and high school. I met new friends fro other countries and I learned about their culture,

habits and traditional food. The best of all was that I found new friends, not just from Latvia and we

are still in touch. I found friends for whole my life at least I hope. It was a great experience for me

and I will never forget it”.

by Petr Pánek

And here you can take a short look at the first two pages of our e-magazine:

SEE YOU IN MARCH IN KARVINÁ !!

SREDNJA EKONOMSKO-POSLOVNA ŠOLA KOPER

SECONDARY ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS SCHOOL KOPER

The project team

Teachers: Nataša Jerman, Nataša Vrčon Tratar, Tanja Skok, Ingrid Baruca, Mojca

Butinar Mužina

Students: Denis Ferhatović, Kaja Ličen, Arnisa Hohxa, Tal Omčikus, Valerija

Lyubchyk, Žan Štefančič, Eneja Ugrin, Vivian Kozjak, Anja Segulin, Tadej Baruca,

Karin Obrstar, Eva Fortuna, Anastasia Reja, Luka Končarević, Florentina Gashi, Elma

Čajić and others.

1. WORK ON THE PROJECT’S THEMES

Presentation of the company Students analysed the data collected by the survey

on the project topic Presentation of the company

and prepared the presentation of it, which was then

present at the project meeting in Riga. With the

help of their mentor Tanja Skok they prepared

another presentation about pitching which offers

some guidelines on how to prepare an ideal pitch

and what needs to be considered when preparing it.

Mobbing The students did some on-line research on

the topic and learned about different types

of mobbing, how to recognize it, what to do

or how to react if you are a victim of

mobbing, what organisations we have in

Slovenia that will help you, etc. The second

activity that we carried out on this topic was

creating a short role-play and acting it out.

The students worked under the guidance of

their teacher – mentor Mojca Butinar

Mužina.

2. GETTING EXPERIENCE

Visit to Sweden In September 2017, 13 students from our third classes and two teachers (Nataša Vrčon Tratar and

Ingrid Baruca) went to Sweden on an exchange visit to a Swedish school Rudbeckianska Gymnasiet

from Västerås. The programme included presentations of students’ companies and the subject Practice

Enterprise that we have at our school, visits to Swedish companies, presentations of the immigrant

issues in both countries and how immigrant students are integrated into the new environment and

school system.

Our students presented our project (Ready for our lives) and the work they have done on the topics of

immigrants and how to present a company. The student companies from both countries made first

contacts and agreed on future cooperation.

Entrepreneurial and Start-up workshops In September (21 – 23 Sept.) 2nd year students took part in three-day workshops “With creativity and

innovation to ambition”, where they worked in mixed teams of students from our school and students

from Secondary Technical School Koper. Each team had to develop a fresh and creative idea for a

business.

At the end all the teams presented their ideas and the team with the best idea went to a competition in

Ljubljana, where agency Spirit chose ten best teams, among which was also our team. They were all

given a prize, which has to be used for the further development of the business idea.

In November (9 – 11 Nov.) 3rd year students participated in Start-up workshops. The workshops were

organized in collaboration with UIP (University Incubator). In both workshops the teachers – mentors

from our school were: Tanja Skok, Nataša Vrčon Tratar and Ingrid Baruca.

Students' companies

Also this school year the

3rd year students set up

real school companies

under the mentorship of

Tanja Skok as part of the

regular activities for the

subject entrepreneurship.

This year they established 5 companies:

1) “Mladi za tačke” (The youth for paws) – they make special biscuits for dogs and cats and they

offer dog-walking service.

2) “Dope soap” – they make and sell natural soaps and foam bombs.

3) “NMK – Naša mala kuhn’ca” (Our little kitchen) – they collect and

write recipes for local dishes and prepare and sell some of these.

4) “Tevent” – a company that organises concerts and teambuilding

workshops and events.

5) “Elysian” – they make their own chocolate products and sell them.

All 5 companies raised their starting capital by selling their shares to

teachers, other students, family, friends, etc. Some of them have already

made and sold their products. “Dope soap” had a stall on the School Open

Day and sold all their products to the visitors, while “NMK” and “Elysian”

sold their biscuits and chocolates at the School St. Nicolas Fair. All of them

are planning to be active during Christmas holidays and are going to sell

their products at stalls in the centre of Koper.

Field trip to »Fructal« in Ajdovščina

In October, 2nd year students went on a field trip and visited

the company “Fructal” in Ajdovščina, which is famous for

their fruit juices. There they visited the production hall and

learned about various steps of the business (from purchasing

to marketing and sales).

3. PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES

European Day of Languages At this occasion we made posters with a number of business words translated into the languages of the

partner countries, which are now on display in front of the school library.

Erasmus+ Corner Coming from Latvia we rearranged the photos and other information in our Erasmus+ Corner, which

was temporarily moved into one of the classrooms as it was used as part of the exhibition organised

for the School Open Day.

“Ready for our lives” on School Open Day

On November 28th, our school organised the yearly open day, which

which is mostly visited by our future students, their parents, but also by

also by other residents of our town. In one classroom we presented our

project “Ready for our lives” and shortly also previous Erasmus+

projects carried out at our school. We prepared a photo exhibition and a

presentation through which students presented the main activities and

results of the project. We also showed a video from the project meeting

in Lithuania.

Our School:

I.I.S. ‘Alessandro Volta’- Nicosia

WHO we are: Headmaster: Felice LIPARI

Teachers: Maria Filippa LA PORTA, Maria LA LICATA, Maria MANCUSO, Fausto BENVEGNA,

Ferdinando LOCIURO, Giuseppa BLASCO, Nunzia ARANCIO, Flavia TOMASELLO, Marina

FARINA

Students: Giovanna POPOLO, Maria Stefania RUBINO, Eleonora QUINTESSENZA, Giuseppe

MANCUSO, Michele SCHILLACI, Federica FASCETTO, Andrea ZITELLI, Andrea LIVOLSI, Irene

ABBATE, Anna SCARDINO, Chiara COMPAGNONE.

Our activities:

The seventh meeting held in Riga – Latvia was a great experience of a different school system and

practices that have enriched participating students and teachers. Our headmaster Mr Felice Lipari took

part to this mobility and it was his second time in taking part to an Erasmus+ KA2 project, he was

very enthusiastic and described this experience at the Teachers’ Assembly as an experience which

enriches our students, our teachers, our school, our community as a whole.

After our coming back we went on disseminating our project results, updating the school webpage and

the project noticeboard at school. We started working on the selection of the team for the next

meeting. We promptly organized a meeting in our school to inform about the activities we had in

Latvia sharing also our knowledge of their school system.

We updated our website, the project blog, our Facebook page as additional tools to discuss and inform about the activities we are carrying on. New pages were created in the Twinspace of our Etwinning project, where students’ presentations, photos and shared activities were uploaded, new students and parents were invited to enter the project as visitors to know more about it.

On the 15th of November we started working on the seventh meeting that will be held in Karvinà – Czech Republic. We visited different companies and had seminars from experts on the topic of different types of entreprenership, the students learnt that entrepreneurs are classified into different types based on different classifications. On the Type of Business (Trading Entrepreneur, Manufacturing Entrepreneur, Agricultural Entrepreneur), on the Use of Technology (Technical Entrepreneur and Non-Technical Entrepreneur);on Gender and on the Size of Enterprise (Small-Scale Entrepreneur; Medium-Scale entrepreneur and Large-Scale entrepreneur) One hundred students answered the questionnaire on the topic planned and started collecting the results. At the same time we carried out the preparatory tasks for the meeting whose topic will be equal opportunities regarding the gender in companies. Students started their researches on this topic on the web and newspapers to know the general situation in Italy using the official site of European Union too to acquire the most recent data which show that Unemployment rates in Italy have not recovered from earlier economic crises, and Italian women still have one of the lowest labour force participation rates. The small number of women in the workforce contributes to Italy having one of the lowest gender pay gaps in the OECD: those women who do engage in paid work are likely to be better -educated and have a higher earnings capacity than women who stay at home. Self-employment is fairly common in Italy, particularly among young women and men, but the gender gap in earnings is high. One reason for women's low labour force participation and low self-employment income is the lack of access to good -quality and affordable childcare. The students learnt that the principle of equal opportunity is grounded in the Italian Constitution (Arts. 3, 37, 51) and Italy became a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, acceding to the CEDAW Optional Protocol in 2000. We looked for women’s enterprises in our small town and we found out that there are really interesting ones.

Dacosa Nascecosa is a small company run by three young women Loredana Nisi, Giosi Piras and Graziella Anello. The waste, the economic crisis that has long loomed, has led to the creation of this small company, whose main purpose is recycling. Creative recycling of textiles of various kinds and objects, enhancing waste. It aims to sensitize to re-use; therefore, the transformation of items that are no longer used because of the size or considered out of fashion, or just for the simple taste of change. They deal also with fashion accessories to which you would like to make changes, thus offering the possibility to their clients to remove from wardrobe a garment or an object no longer used and to let it enter a completely new one. They also provide ideas for events, occasions and so on, based on the creative recycling of materials that are no longer used. Here some of our students participated to a creative laboratory during which they created a woman dress out of old-fashioned men’s ties.

Before Christmas we met Mrs. Anna Rizzo and visited ‘Anna Spose’, her Haute Couture Atelier which makes

formal and smart clothes for ceremonies but above all for brides and grooms. She is meeting again our students

at the end of January to be interviewed.

Near our school a Kiosk was opened in 2012 called ‘Al Chiosco’. The owners are two young girls, Alessia

Iuppa and Pamela Cacciato who realized their dream thanks to European funding for young women

entrepreneurs. They apparently work behind a counter, serving hot drinks (such as espresso, chocolate), cold

alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages but they are pointing on the kiosk image on the quality of the products

offered. They are trying to accompany the sale of traditional products with special drinks made from local fruit

and herbs. The kiosk has a good position, close to offices, our school and it is a transit place. They are adopting

smart pricing strategies: the profit margin is high, on sandwiches from 40 to 50% while on drinks up to 300%,

so in the initial phase of their business they adopted competitive prices to let them know and quickly acquire

their customers (but always paying attention to the quality of the product!) . They are really kind to everyone

but firm, they are quick and used to hard work, sometimes it happens that they work 14 hours a day.

On 18th December our school planned a live event on Etwinning, the coordinators of the seven partecipant countries to the project 'Ready for our lives' met online to discuss on the run of the project and took the opportunity to exchange greetings for Christmas and the New Year.

We are planning other activities for the next months that will be presented at the meeting in Karvinà.

SEE YOU IN KARVINA

Ways of entrepreneurship – Museum of Optical Illusions

In September, our Erasmus + student team went to an Optical Museum to see and learn

about museum as a business opportunity. Museums have long understood by their

educational, cultural and national value, but from the other hand it has economic impact on the

community too. Museums may become a big business and not only entertainment.

It is kind of unique for Latvia, interactive, unpredictable and attractive curiosity venue,

located in the heart of the Old Town where most of the tourists spend their time. So, this

fascinating world of illusions will blow your mind, it is a great possibility to learn something

new and to see the world from a different angle, most of all you will have great chance to

make incredible selfies!

Volunteering job!

If you are studying, in work, or out of work, volunteering is a way to develop new

skills, build confidence and show future employers what you can do. Nowadays, you can add

on your CV about volunteering job, if you are a volunteer at an animal shelter or hospital, or

any other field that helps the society and some social issue solving situation in your country.

Remember volunteering job is always GOOD practice to tell others about.

Our students doing volunteering job at our school, planting rhododendrons and cleaning

around the school territory.

WorkingDay - meeting with Juris Garjanis who is Recruitment Specialist. The main task of

WorkingDay recruitment experts is to provide every client with a high quality service,

executing search and delivering candidates matching client expectations. Juris told us about

today’s situation at a job market what professions are most needed which companies are

developing and have bright future in the world of business.

You do not have to become a worker to enjoy working and earning money. You can become

an entrepreneur yourself! Your business means that you yourself are the master, but at the

same time you are responsible for your there for you’re your company and employees. It is

importantant to find the right idea and plan a strategy for developing it. To make a business

idea competitive, you need to do a series of work on the demand side of the manufactured

goods or services offered, whether their prices will be competitive, start-up capital, qualified

staff and many other conditions. If you have decided to become an entrepreneur, you must

first earn the business ABC.

The task was created for our students:

Step one - make a research about one company that is on your way from home to

school.

Step two - make a research what education will you need to work for this company, and

evaluate the demand of this profession at a job market.

Step three - Evaluate demand for this profession, the average remuneration in the

profession, find out at State Employment agency the number of unemployed people at this

profession, vacancies. Make a presentation about all the data you have found out.

Christmas market at our school –

Since we are in a project Ready for Our Lives Christmas market at our school has taken

place each year just before the Christmas holydays. All students are invited to take part, but

we are proud to admit that students who are involved at project are more active than the

others.

Our Ready for Our Lives girls selling self-made goods at Christmas market

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all Erasmus+ TEAM !

Project team “Ready for our lives”

Headmistress: Violeta Liutkienė

Teachers: Gitana Kaupienė, Agnė Bačiauskienė, Rasa Jėckienė

Students: Urtė Dirdaitė, Barbora Mižutavičiūtė, Smiltis Žilinskas

Local activities:

• We visited the local Police Station and discussed about the women and men equal rights at the

workplace.

• We met the representative of the Youth Job Center specialist i Kėdainiai Labour Exchange

• We visited and interviewed the manager of Panevėžio Energija Company.

Police Station

In October our team visited Kėdainiai Police Station. We talked about Erasmus + “Ready for our lives“

project theme on women and men equal rights with a police representative Aušra Mickevičienė.

The police officer had prepared the statistics about how many men and women work in the station. The

statistical data showed the equal number of them. Also, Aušra mentioned that both men and women have

the same rights to use a gun, a tazer and other equipment. Besides, the new employees have to take a part

in a performance, in which they have to overcome the same tedious tasks and their salary depends on their

performance at work. Nevertheless, the commissioner is a male in Lithuanian police stations. Kedainiai

police station is not an exception as well.

Furthermore, we had an informative discussion about confusing situations in the police working place and

how both sexes of workers overcome everyday challenges.

Lithuanian Labour Exchange

After the meeting at the Police Station we went to the Youth Job Center department in Labour Exchange

in Kėdainiai and had an informative discussion with Jurgita Liutkevičienė, representative of center.

We find out that the local labour market is not divided into jobs for the different genders. Everyone has the

right to choose what kind of job he or she wants. Actually, only the employer chooses who is going to

work at the company.

Talking about unemployment, the statistics show that there are 1198 unemployed women in Kėdainiai and

that makes 55% of all the unemployed people. Obviously, there is a similar percentage of men (about

45%).

Panevėžio energija

Our team continued preparations for the presentations in Czech Republic on the project topics. This time

we visited Panevežio Energija Company which provides heat for Kėdainiai and 7 other towns around it.

We met Algimantas Mižutavičius, the manager of heating Networks Company. He told us about the

importance of this company for our citizens and we discussed about our project‘s main questions.

All the rights are equal for both men and women in this company. However, women usually do not choose

this kind of a job because of its physical requirements for heavy lifting, repairing heating tubes, hard

operating tasks with boilers. Therefore women only work as the white-collar workers or administrators

because they have more patience to deal with citizens who are complaining and are not easy to talk to. In

addition, the females are more likely to do the work they are good at, but as the manager told, there were

not a single woman who applied for a spot in locksmithing or boilers machinist place.

PORTUGAL

READY FOR OUR LIVES 6th Meeting – Riga Agrupamento de Escolas Alexandre Herculano was represented by three students, the leader teacher and the Headmaster at the 6th Meeting of “Ready For Our Lives” in Riga. Among all the activities we stand out:

1. The visits to the companies: Draugiem and Mádara, through which we intensified our knowledge about the different aspects of the thematic of our partnership;

At Draugiem company At Mádara company

2. The seminar on ‘Presenting a Company’ by Lecturer Mrs. Vita Brakovska.

Mrs. Vita Brakovska’s lecture

3. Lecture on Mobbing at BA School of Business and Finance by vice-rector for Academic Affairs

assoc. prof. Mrs. Liga Peiseniece, as well as the workshop on the same topic.

Workshop on ‘Mobbing’ – ‘Me and You’

4. The presentations on the research work done by all the students on the topics of ‘Presenting a company’ and on ‘Mobbing’.

Some of the Presentations done by students on the research work on the topic “Mobbing”

Our Students’ reports on this mobility experience: ‘The experience I lived in Latvia was amazing!

I loved to meet people from other countries, talk to them and learn more about several cultures. I was

also very happy with the person who welcomed and hosted me. I spent an incredible week with her.

Although the activities were not so many, the ones we were involved in, were quite good. They made

me learn even more things than the ones we can learn at school.’ Barbara Barbosa

‘How I lived the experience of the meeting of “Ready For Our Lives” in Riga - I think it was an interesting and enriching experience. Interaction with students from other countries was very important. We met new people, different cultures and different ways of being and thinking about life. There was no time for being ashamed, we had to be spontaneous and interact with the other students. The activities that I liked the most was the one we did in college and the other one with the animation. They were activities that put us to the test, because we had to build groups with one person from each country and we had to adapt ourselves to each other. This experience was very important because I could train my English much more, something that I do not do today, So, I only have to thank you for having welcomed me. Thank you. ‘

Liliana Marques

‘In my opinion, the meeting in Latvia was an enriching experience in terms of knowing a new culture,

new habits and different people with whom we had the opportunity to make friendship. It was also a

great opportunity to practice our English, since we don’t speak it so often as we were ‘forced’ to

speak there. I particularly liked the activity made at school, in which groups were built to produce

students’ own animations on mobbing.’ Beatriz Venâncio

Dissemination

As usual the dissemination was done among students and teachers in an open meeting at the school

library. Simultaneously a small exhibition was patent to the public, at the Erasmus+ “Ready For Our

Lives” corner. Besides that, and as usual, big TVs placed in different parts of school showed videos

about the meeting running permanently on the screens.

The “Ready For Our Lives” corner

Evaluation

Both students and teachers who participated in the mobility did the online evaluation.

E-twinning live

In December we participated in an online live meeting in e-twinning. At the beginning we had some

problems with the video, but at last we could manage it and we succeeded.

Preparation for Karviná

It was time to think about the next meeting in Karviná and start the preparations we need.

Firstly, eleven grader students (from class B and a few from class A) answered the questionnaire that

our partner from Lithuania sent us. For the first time they had some difficulties on answering it. They

needed to do some extra reading on the topic, as it is not the area of their studies.

The same students have started doing research work on the topic they have to present next meeting -

equality of genre at labour market. Related with that they attended a workshop at the school library,

under the orientation of teachers, Maria José Pereira and Sónia Salta on “Equality of Genres”.

Having as a starting point a sketch about “Promotion on genre equality”, students dealt with the topic in different

contexts.

Scheduled visits to companies

Next week students of class 11ºB will participate in a visit to the company “Viarco” (where pencils

are produced) and to Oliva creative factory (iron products), as well as to the Hat Museum and to the

shoe Museum belonging all the four (among others) to the Industrial Tourism of S. João da Madeira (a

town not too far from Porto). This will bring them closer to the world of work and to a direct contact

with daily situations in the labour market, allowing them to be aware of their industrial patrimony.

We all are eager to meet you in Karviná!

Principal; Kenan Çelik

Teachers; Funda Vuslat Mackenzie

Students; Öykü Yıldızhan, Filiz Çezik, Ayşe İrem Mutaf, Şerife Mine Altındal

We arrived Riga on the 10th of October on a cold day around 6 pm. The host famillies kindly met us

at our hotel.

On Wednesday after the welcome ceremony at school Mrs. Vita Brakovska gave a presentation on the

topic Presentation of a company. Later on all the countries presented their results of the questionnaire

on the same topic which was followed by the presentation of the National Cuisines. In the afternoon

more presentations took place on the topic of mobbing in companies. In the evening we the teachers

got together for dinner and the children were with their host families.

On Thursday we all met in Old Town and walked to the Town Hall where we met with the the

representative of the council Mr. Janis Prusis. Then we visited the Riga Central Market to see how

small businesses work in Latvia. In the afternoon we had a lecture by Mrs.Liga Peiseniece and a

workshop on mobbing in companies called "you and me".

On Friday, October the 13th we all visited two local very successful businesses, Draugiem.lv and

Madara Eco Cosmetics where we found out about their ways of promotions and presentations of the

work. In the evening, the teachers visited the Opera to watch "die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss.

On Saturday, we visited the important places of interest like Bauska castle where we practiced some

Rennaisance dances, Rundale Castle and Mezotnes Castle.

On Sunday the 15th, the students explored more about the history, culture and traditions of Latvia

with their host families.

On Monday October the 16th, the students joined in a workshop at school where they created several

short animations about mobbing in their international groups. At the meantime the teachers got

together for an evaluation meeting. In the afternoon, the teachers and the students we all watched

amazing performances at school which was followed by giving certificates and a farewell party.

On the next day, in the late afternoon the Turkish team left Riga with beautiful memories.

Reports by the participant students on this mobility: “It was probably the best week of my life. The family with whom I stayed hosted me and the Italian

project participant. We had so much fun together. Everybody was very excited on the first day. We

made various workshops. We got to know one another and became very good friends. I personally

made a lot of friends. We, as the Turkish group, introduced our country, traditions and cuisine. It was

a lot of fun. My Latvian friend’s mother was a great cook. She prepared delicious breakfasts and

dinners for me. She also has a sister who took care of us. I have experienced great adventures that I

can’t experience ever again. Luckily, I participated in this Erasmus project. I made a lot of foreign

friends coming from different European countries, which made me quite happy. I am still in touch

with Elizabeth and Francesca with whom I stayed in the same house. I am so lucky to find two like-

minded persons. I am glad to know them.”

Öykü YILDIZHAN

“Riga was the city of my dreams. It was quite difficult for me to return home after such a wonderful

journey. The Latvian family who hosted me were very friendly and hospitable. I enjoyed spending time

at school and I liked the activities there. They served us delicious food. The students at school were

very friendly and warm-hearted. We traveled to different places and experienced their culture. They

have very strict rules. If you are under 18, you can’t do anything. People living in Latvia are very

punctual and rule-based. Specifically, they follow the traffic rules. I think we have a lot of similarities.

For instance, they hide the keys under the rug as well. They love animals. Nearly everyone has a pet

in their homes. My host family has two dogs and two birds. Houses in Riga is quite old. Most people

live on the outskirts of the city in the woods. However, I stayed in the city center. Transportation was

good and easy. There was Wi-Fi all around the city. I later learned that Riga is famous for its Wi-Fi. I

missed it a lot and I am planning to go there in September.”

Filiz ÇEZİK

“I appreciated their education system. It was well-ordered and systematical. Latvian people are clean

and orderly. They don’t litter on the streets. They follow the traffic rules. Even if there are no cars,

they don’t cross the street at the red lights. They are highly protective of environment. Everywhere is

green. You can’t see a lot of street animals. People are sensitive and they adopt animals. They value

animals and environment greatly. They are also loyal to their history and protective of their national

identity. They show respect to their museums. I learned that their current flag is not the original one.

It underwent some changes. There is Wi-Fi all around the country. They are connected to their

churches. Everyone treats one another respectfully and they keep silence in the church. I stayed with

Laura’s family. Her parents were very understanding and hospitable. They made me happy. The

students and the teachers at school were very friendly and kind. We spent great time together. It was

an awesome week.”

Ayşe İrem MUTAF

DISSEMINATINON;

Meeting with students from other schools in different town;

Our teachers and students visited another school, called Muratpaşa Türk Telekom Anadolu Lisesi in

the different town in January and presented our project “Ready for our Lives” as well as Erasmus+

programme.

Meeting with school students;

Our participating students explained what and how they did in the last mobility in Riga. They also

gave information about the project I the canteen and classes.

E-twinning live

We participated in an online live meeting on our project e-twinning portal with other partners in

December. And we successfully completed this event although it was a late time for us because of the

time differences (we are three hours ahead of the Portugeese time zone).

SEE YOU ALL IN KARVINA :-)