Solid friendship and cooperation, that’s what the 3 schools in our project stand for. Way back in 2008 Middenschool Sint-Pieter, from Oostkamp Belgium, and IES Alonso de Ercilla, from Ocaña Spain, teamed up to organise international projects. In 2012 they joined forces with Øyslebø Opvekstsenter, from Øyslebø, Norway.
Since then, several dozens of pupils have travelled back and forth between our schools, experiencing everyday life abroad, the typical approach of the school systems and above all: the mutual respect and friendship of the participants.
We have been working together in several projects concerning a variety of topics. E.g. sustainability, physical and mental health at school and the use of apps and social media. In 2019 we applied for a new grant from Erasmus+. Our common concern for the environment and the rapidly changing climate caused by the greenhouse effect resulted in a new Erasmus+ project: I’mpact.
We experienced the need for adequate information on climate change and a positive attitude towards the future. The 3 schools in our project chose 3 fields of action that can be summarised in this slogan:
I’m aware of climate change. I’m positive about it and I act accordingly.
The logo represents a drop in the ocean. We need action. Concrete action with an I’MPACT on health and environment. Sometimes our actions only seem like drops in the ocean. But it takes lots of drops to fill an ocean! The more drops we create, the better the result of our actions. A hopeful and positive message for our pupils.
In 2020 we kicked off our first project year but the Covid-19 pandemic disturbed our plans and exchanges. We had to fall back on local activities in our 3 centres.
We had to make new plans and thanks to the modern media we were able to participate in a 3 day virtual exchange organised by our coordinator in Spain. Nothing beats contact in real life, so we were delighted to hear that we were granted an extra project year to achieve our goals. In the schoolyear 2021-2022 we finally were able to go full throttle and to organise pupil exchanges again. 2022-2023 promises to be very busy as wel.
