Equal opportunities for young deaf people in Europe has been the focus of our work. In this project we have researched in the field of social and labor inclusion, and the interaction of our deaf students with the hearing students. We have compared the different situations in different countries and schools to see if inclusion is possible and if our deaf and hard-of-hearing students have any chance of living a normal life among hearing people once they leave school. We have observed what students experience in their post-secondary education or vocational training and also the difficulty that it entails for them to find an adequate job and how they work in them. One of the main questions we initially raised was: is Europe ready to accept deaf people as a workforce? We have done research on how and how many deaf people go to university or achieve a degree in Vocational Training. We wanted to demonstrate that deafness is an important disability, since it can affect the person cognitively, and when the attention to this fact is late, as is the case of most children in many countries, they reach secondary school with a low level educational, that connected to his poor command of oral language, makes insertion very difficult. And in the case of people with hearing problems, an invisible disability, teachers who are not familiar with them tend to think that they are distracted, lazy or not interested in different subjects.We have also compared the different ways in which schools prepare students for life after high school, do we have enough equipment for our students, with knowledge and realistic ideas about opportunities? Are they prepared for the obstacles they will face and are they strong enough to overcome them?In this project, we have also worked with hearing students. Some of the participating schools are exclusively for the deaf, while others have only a small department dedicated to them. Schools with deaf students exclusively have the capacity to organize activities at the local level of greater importance.With the mobility of students in this project has been achieved:1. Development of a social network.2. Obtain international experience (traveler) and European awareness.3. Practice international communication with the help of sign languages ​​and English (written and spoken).4. Use modern means in our own international network (through Facebook, Skype and the blog we have). This is an additional aspect of great relevance that directly improves the lives of our students and broadens their horizons.Three things stand out in this project:1. We have worked with students with total deafness and students with hearing and language problems, who can compare their experiences and establish ideas for early integration in an attractive way for young people, how they can help each other, where they can cooperate, being active in the search for ideas and solutions.2. Students have participated in this project during their study time in high school. By making them part of the project, we have given them a different role, have been our fellow researchers, helping others in the future or helping each other.3. We have shared with all European schools the results and the intercultural idea of ​​the deaf. We have dealt with a linguistic minority in each country, with a culture and society that does not always understand its difficulties and helps integration.

"The project ""Experience Art - Increase Motivation"" aimed at students in danger of dropping out of school prematurely. We are six schools of upper secondary level from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Spain and Turkey. Our aim was to develop and test concepts of increasing the students' motivation by involving them in various art projects. The concepts we developed and tested follow a two-stage process. In the first step every school prepared their students for participating in art workshops which took place at the project meetings. Every project meeting focused on one specific art form(e.g. painting, photography, film etc.) and each school invited experts on these art forms in interdisciplinary lessons combining English and the Arts. Teachers of each school developed preparation concepts for this purpose and implemented them before each meeting. During this preparation process there will be constant contact via TwinSpace and e-mail. There were teachers' and students' chats, preparation materials will be uploaded and announcements were made at the bulletin board on twinspace. At every meeting there were delegations of about 5 students and 3 teachers from each school and there were be two major lines of action. The first concentrated on students, art teachers and artists. They had several stages of workshops in which they dealt with one specific art form and produce artworks. The results were presented in exhibitions and performances open to the public. The second line of action involved teachers, mainly English teachers who took part in the interdisciplinary preparation activities. Each school presented their activities prior to the meetings and the international team of teachers will combine the best ideas and actitivies into one concept for an interdisciplinary project concept focusing on Art and English. The project was planned to consist of six of these project terms and after each meeting the new term started with the preparation for the next meeting The results of the preparation and the meetings are presented on a project homepage (www.experience-art.eu). Moreover, the project itself is presented on eTwinning focusing the underlying purpose of enhancing students' motivation by involving them in art based interdisciplinary projects. The concept for the preparation of the students and the implementation of the workshops will be available to teachers and interested professionals in digital and printed form (Download on the homepage).The effects of the project will be measured with the help of questionnaires. Students assessed the effects of participation on their level of motivation for school as well as on identification with school and students and teachers will give a feedback on the structure of the workshops and the organization of the meetings. The results of these polls will influence the structure of the following activities within the project and this will lead to an ongoing process of enhancing the project and the strategies used. This monitoring process shows that among the students participating in the project the level of motivation and identification developed in a more positive way than among students who didn't participate in the project (compare: http://www.experience-art.eu/links-and-documentation/). The difference between these two groups is not huge, but nevertheless noticable and these results are supported by the personal feedback the teachers got from the students taking part as well as by the impressions teachers got by working with the students."

"INITIAL SITUATIONSelecting the wrong field of study, too much pressure to perform, financial problems or poor grades are frequently reasons for early termination of studies. Young adults who terminated their studies before getting graduated face the challenge what to do without qualification. Very often such dropouts are taking odd jobs or positions for unskilled workers in order to survive and in worse case are relying on state assistance.At the same time dropouts have substantial, formally acquired professional skills and knowledge which differentiate them from the successfully graduated students only by not having a formal document, diploma or certificate, which confirms a completed formal education. PROJECT IMPLEMENTATIONAgainst this background the West German Chambers of Crafts and Skilled Trades´ Council (WHKT) has completed between 2013 and 2015 in North Rhine-Westphalia a pilot project “from dropout to a master student”. The goal was to identify new career opportunities in the craft sector (www.studienaussteiger-nrw.de).The ERASMUS+ project ""alternative career opportunities for dropouts – termination means restart"" takes this successful approach in order to bring the developed products in the above-described project, ideas and insights into a European and cross-sectoral information exchange.OBJECTIVES/RESULTSFor this purpose the consortium in the project has set and aimed the following objectives:A) Transfer of methods for counselling dropoutsB) Build up a network for counselling dropouts via social mediaC) Transfer of an information-brochure for companies (and regional adaptation)D) Transfer of an information-brochure, how academic achievements can be acknowledged for a professional activity (and regional adaptation)E) Transfer of best-practice examples in the project countries (dropouts)F) Transfer of a sponsorship model: build up a pool to support dropoutsTARGETGROUPSA) primary target group are dropouts in the project partner countries (AT, BG, DE, HU, GR, TR)B) secondary target group are consultants, coaches and stakeholder in the project partner regions (of dropouts)TRANSNATIONAL COVERAGE In all partner countries there is a great need for action to support dropouts (betw. 15% and 30% of all first-year students break off their study and have great difficulties in the future and limited career choices).For this reason, the project partners have agreed to combine their expertise, exchange knowledge/information and transnationally develop and disseminate together a model ""alternative career opportunities for dropouts"". Different project teams (composed of min. 2 partner countries) work on implementing the respective objectives.IMPACT AND BENEFITSAll project partners expect:A) to consult dropouts better and efficient with the new developed tools B) to be able to incorporate dropouts in the labour market easier and more efficient.In parallel to this, potential employers (companies and institutions) will benefit from hiring good educated dropouts as employees and make use of the currently available studies at the universities."

European societies are ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse. This growing diversity, especially with respect to culture, ethnicity and religion, poses both opportunities and challenges to European institutions and European societies. Recent studies show increasing intolerance and social exclusion both in schools and communities (EU Project Accept pluralism, 2010-2013). Particularly, in the secondary schools, the behaviours of social rejection are of high occurrence and have an enormous impact on the further life of the students. Adolescents spend most of their time at school and establishing positive peer relations forms a key aspect of integration. The rejection of youngsters by their peers may impede their further integration in the society, leading to often far beyond than educational consequences such as gender issues, bullying, hate speech, perception of inequality and even violent behaviour. Hence, integrating migrant children and succeeding in host country education systems is a key part of the wider socio-economic integration of migrant populations. Therefore, to increase inclusiveness and social well-being of migrant students it is crucial to implement tailored practical approaches at grassroots level and to boost skills of students, their parents and educators to reverse and reduce the risk on this long-recognised exclusion of migrants. FAIR SCHOOL is one of the initiatives to contribute in tackling this complex issue through developing and implementing inclusive and communication-fostering schemes for the establishment of fair, tolerant and inclusive environment in school based on integration of effective pedagogical techniques: restorative justice combined with proactive context-based and social and emotional learning approaches. It will increase empathy, tolerance and social & communication skills amongst pupils, relevant for the inclusion and mutual understanding between people coming from different socio-cultural backgrounds. The FAIR SCHOOL consortium proposes to:-To develop strategies in the form of collaborative co-curriculum activities based on restorative practices, narrative and social & emotional learning approaches that can be implemented in classroom and school circles-To increase skills of school educators on inclusive methodologies and pedagogical approaches for fostering pupils’ integration and mutual understanding-To enhance the capacity of schools in addressing social inclusion through implementing FAIR SCHOOL schemes in local schools in 4 EU countries-To increase the consciousness and knowledge of parents and carers of students on their role on the children behaviour in the context of tolerance and open-mindedness toward diversity-To raise awareness on the problem of social cohesion in multicultural schools and to promote cultural diversity at schoolsThe most relevant of the FAIR SCHOOL results are summarised as follows:- Created and validated FAIR SCHOOL methodology and concrete activities aimed at boosting intercultural communication and tolerance amongst students based on innovative approaches such as restorative practices and social and emotional learning - Created and validated online capacity building training for teachers and educators (pedagogist, psychologists, sociologists, etc.) on the FAIR SCHOOL schemes: as a result, communication and multicultural techniques of teachers that have participated in online trainings and FAIR SCHOOL courses will be improved; at least 100 teachers trained through online courses and 25 teachers trained during presential transnational shared learning event- Increased capacity of the schools to be responsive against the multicultural classrooms and thus boosting the level of social inclusion of students coming from migrant and different socio-economic backgrounds through pilot implementation of the FAIR SCHOOL co-curricular activities in selected secondary schools at the participating countries. -Involvement of at least 500 pupils in this pilot implementation of the FAIR SCHOOL schemes at the participating schools leading to their Increased empathy, improved communication skills, self-advocacy and sense of belonging due to improved relationships and community building.- Raised awareness at the educational level of the possibility of improving in a real way the methodological strategies to address the problem of social inclusion and multicultural tolerance and communication amongst the migrant and native-born students. An implementation roadmap outlining the steps to include the FAIR SCHOOL co-curricular activities as a part of the school educational programme will be developed and disseminate amongst the policy makers and educational public administration at local, regional and national levels. - Increased awareness at 6 European countries on the new pedagogical approaches for social inclusion through innovative multicultural communication schemes amongst students and their parents.