In the Working group of EU Skills week, members from the 5 regional VET Schools networks (The Dutch Alliance, Northern Ireland Colleges, Finn-net, Colleges of Scotland and HETEL) share different initiatives aimed at improving the image and visibility of the Vocational training.
In HETEL we selected the experience presented by Deltion College, Walk of fame, to be implemented in our network. In this initiative successful Vocational Training students were the focus, and so, their images were placed on the website and on posters located in the aisles of the School. Due to the COVID situation we have adapted this experience and developed only the digital version of the initiative. After reflecting about it in HETEL´s Communication working group, we decided to implement this initiative adapting it so that it would become our own. That is why we considered to highlight the school´s experiences more related with the social commitment and justice, as this is one of the remarkable values of our association and schools. The name of the initiative is FP Abantean IS SOCIAL. Meanwhile, the selected experiences are completely aligned with the SDGs 2030.
We created a blog: https://fpabanteanissocial.blogspot.com/ and at this moment 10 different projects from our schools are uploaded (explanation, picture, and video):
- Somorrostro School. Recycling with Hahatay NGO. In this project VET students from different professional fields (welding, maintenance, electricity and electronics, environmental education, and marketing) face the challenge of building machines that would serve to manufacture tiles, knobs, and other building materials from plastics waste in Gandiol (Senegal). The students travelled there to explain and teach the inhabitants of Gandiol how to use the machines.
- Goierri School – KELLESENSA solidary project in Senegal. VETstudentsfrom different professional fields (administration, gather the money; mechanical design, designing; and welding, building) are involved in a project with the aim of building a handbike for AZIZ, a boy from Kelle (Senegal) that has mobility problems.
- Irungo La Salle School is developing the social sensitivity of level 3 students. All the students of this level must course the subject titled “The adventure of the life” with the aim of fostering the social commitment among students. As part of this subject, they participate in different initiatives with different NGOs as volunteers.
- Maristak Durango school: Connecting People Durango – Orore. ICT students collect and repair computers to send them to schools in Orore (Kenya). Students are also developing digital resources for this schools.
- Maristak Durango: games for Río de Oro NGO. Students from different fields (mechanical design, mechanical manufacturing and electricity and electronics) design and manufacture some games and toys for Saharan kids.
- MGEP school students help SMEs in the digitalization process. When the COVID pandemic situation started, companies had to fasten the digitalization of some of their processes. ICT students from MGEP school created a company to help SME´s develop and adapt to this process.
- MGEP school students building a plastic grinder. Students from mechanical design built a plastic grinder that uses plastic waste to make new products, following the Precious Plastic sustainable movement.
- San Viator School “Workshop without borders”. Automotive students and teachers from San Viator school participated in the solidarity project “Workshop without borders” to facilitate the mobility of children from the Erg Chebbi desert (Morocco). They distributed bicycles and they created different bicycle repair workshops so they could repair them. They also gave children a small training in mechanics.
- Zabalburu schools involved in VET – COVID 19 initiative. In the period when there weren´t enough PPE for health and Social workers at the beginning of the pandemic situation, this school was one of the 59 Basque VET centres that with the Maker community, developed face protection screens or visors made by 3D printing.
- Otxarkoaga Tipi Tapa. Otxarkoaga is a bad image neighbourhood and Otxarkoaga’s students intended to create a positive reputation through transforming the environment, especially where social interaction can happen. The students repaired/ built benches and bins and cleaned and planted trees in a leisure space that was unused because of its disrepair.
- Otxarkoaga Modern art. The main objective of this festival is to show that young people are a well prepared and supportive generation, who know how to coexist among the same and different. It is intended to break stereotypes and false images generated around the Otxarkoaga neighborhood and its young people, with “bad press” in recent years. This festival promotes the positive and inclusive coexistence of a diverse and multicultural neighbourhood that makes up the educational community of the school.
- Egibide “Jump the barriers”. Egibide School organizes each year “Jump the barriers” campaign. It is a project aimed at LEVEL 1 VET students in order to sensitize them about the different architectural, communication, social and psychological barriers that limit accessibility and social participation to many people in our society. Different activities managed by Level 4 Social Integration VET students are carried out aimed at eliminating prejudices, empathizing with people with functional diversity who have to face these accessibility problems every day.
The blog will be open and, moreover, we will encourage schools to continue sharing some of their initiatives in it.
The evaluation of this experience has been very positive and we are pleased to have been part of it through the exchange of experiences with European colleagues. Abantean!
Leire Belar
HETEL
No Comments