In times of high unemployment among young people in Europe, especially with
a migration background or with learning difficulties, it is important to
prepare young people better for their working lives. We have chosen to combine creativity
and being self-employed without employees (ZZP-er). In this way you can work
independently and you don’t have to wait for an employer to give you a job. You
also can start working in other countries in Europe.
Schools pay less and less attention to creative subjects, but precisely by
stimulating and developing creativity, you get flexible, enterprising,
problem-solving students. Creativity is one of the important 21st century
skills. By bringing students in the different countries into contact with
creative entrepreneurs and with various innovative, creative disciplines, they
gain insight into their own creative talent and the possibilities to make a
profession out of it.
All four participating schools (Germany: Neuburg, Spain: Cordoba, Italy: Assago,
the Netherlands: Emmeloord) are secondary schools; with students between 13 and
16 years old. All schools believe in the added value of this project and see
exchanges of students as a necessity to achieve good sustainable outcomes. It’s
important for students to experience the differences between countries, but
also the opportunities. The schools differ in experiences in terms of creative
subjects, innovative technology and career orientation. The partnership will be
based upon exchange of good practice and learning from eachother. The project
will last two years and there will be two students exchanges each year. Each
school will attend with 8 students and 2 teachers.
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| Students and teachers during the first mobility in Emmeloord |
Prior to an exchange the students make presentations about themselves
during an English lesson and in Artclasses they can already make designs for
the creative workshops they will attend during the exchange. In that way other
students get to know about the project too. Every exchange the students will
visit self- employed persons (art/design, music/drama) and interview them and
give presentations about the visit afterwards; they take part in various
innovative, creative workshops like designing with 3D- printing, making vlogs,
etc; they visit a company/ institution, involved with Art / Design or entrepeneurship;
they write a businessplan based on the Art product they made and a marketing
assignment; if possible they visit a cultural heritage place (if in the area).
Afterwards, back at their own school the students will give presentations to
their classmates during the Economy classes about the experiences they had with
Creativity@work.
All activities will be communicated via Twinspace and our own blogspot,
students will make vlogs before, during and after the exchange and put them on our
youtube channel. Updates of the project will be published on each schools
website and the local media will be tuned in everytime when there is an
activity.
From the vlogs and the presentations afterwards we can see if the students
have discovered their creative talents, know what it takes to become a self
-employed person and understand that, regardless of their
origin or their learning difficulties, they can take initiative themselves to
become independent entrepeneurs in the creative field.
With this project we want to inspire the schools to give more attention to
subjects such as Art and Design, Music and Drama. Working as a self-employed
person and writing a simple businessplan can be included in the curriculum of
Career Orientation and Guidance.
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| The teachers involved in the project |
Because the vlogs are also viewed by other youngsters they can be inspired
to develop creativity and make it their profession. Parents of students will be
happy because the students are better prepared for their future. Students
perform better at school when they have a goal in mind and there are fewer drop-outs;
something the schoolmanagements will appreciate.
With this project we want to help to reduce unemployment among young people
in the future.
