Erasmus+ – Nature Likens Us, Education Distinguishes Us

Begining from the title of the project, we want to demonstrate through the international partnership that although nature is the one that resembles us, education distinguishes us by the fact that theoretical and technical instruction based on healthy values and common sense, will always change the life of the scholars involved by identifying common needs at european level, in order to achieve local, national and international change. Concidering that a worrying percentage of children remain unskilled or isolated in their families due to a lack of effective alternatives, the special vocational education system continues to be the only solution basedon the medical approach of disability. We, Romania, Greece, Turkey and Italy, consider it absolutely necessary to get involved in an international partnership, to disseminate information about our work with these children with mild and moderate mental deficiency, in order to raise awareness of the importance of their integration in the labour market and in social life. Our project aims toincrease the students’ motivation and involvement in their own future, to integrate them into society, after graduation of the courses. The need to carry out this project is linked to the importance of learning a trade of current interest and demanded on the European labour market, by the students with special educational needs in some european special schools. The objectives of the project derive from the educational needs identified in partener schools, society and in the European community. The key objective addresses the most important issues: the individual development of 40 children with SEN (Special Educational Needs), on the level of developing the manual skills abilities in 24 months that are necessary for the future profession of textile worker. Ensuring equal opportunities for 40 students in the European Union area, in order to maximize the personality and specific skills for tehnical profession (textile tailoring and art design). Ensuring the accessibility of educational programs through the exchange of experience between teachers working with students with SEN in the EU. In our project will participate 10 scholars with special educational needs from each partner school, 2 accompanying scholars (1 attendant per 5 scholars) from each participating country in international trips and 3 teachers representing the respective unit for transnational meetings. Taking into account that we, Romania and Greece, as partners and coordinators for the first time in a project funded by the European Union, we want to be a practical example of involvement in our educational instructive work with scholars with special educational needs. Although the textiles industry is relatively developed and there are jobs in this area, the students’ motivation to get a job after graduation, will grow. Through the work shops and work sessions that we will carry out, we will learn along with our partners fromTurkey, Greece and Italy how to follow the stages of building-up a traditional fashion product, the traditional stylized blouse for both boys and girls. Students will deploy various, stimulating, practical activities based on the development of key competences, learning how to describe raw materials and auxiliaries in textiles, how to select sewing materials for different fashion products, how to check the details of the products and auxiliary materials etc. In the same time,the project team will get involvedin a management activity, wich will determine the necessary tasks in achieving a quality management. Another task is to write the job description and the attributions of each member of the managementand implementation team of the project. This will be a good opportunity to transfer good practices and knowledge between the participants. The tangible intellectual results will be all the fashion products, layouts and conclusions from the exchange of best practices, wich we will bring together in an attractive brochure and the teaching tutorials. We will try to ensure free of charge through internationalization by translating into all the languages of the partner countries to encourage good practice examples with beautiful results in changing the lives of disadvantaged people with whom we will work within this project. The impact will be positive at the European Union level, with the aim of increasing the quality of education and training of pupils with special needs in Europe by aligning the education system to the opportunities of the european market. At the end of the project, we will continue to implement the objectives with the examples of good practices purchaise din the partner countries and we will look to make other projects at european level to develop and to continue to reduce the risk that after finishingthe studies, students with special educational needs will not succeed to get a job and also the social inclusion won’t be achieved.