This is a special adventure that began in a very interesting and well-conceived eTwinning project, awarded with National and European Labels, between different European countries – “Let’s visit a country – II”.

The Erasmus+ idea started right at first when students, teachers and parents questioned the possibility to meet the people and places they discovered through all the amazing activities promoted and shared in the eTwinning project.

So, bringing together curiosity, adventure, the need to find and meet different places and cultures, six teachers from six different European schools (Poland (the coordinator), Italy, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Portugal) decided to found the Erasmus+ project ” Unesco Untold Experiences and Stories of a Country”, as cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices experience.

This is the result of this wonderful three-year intense rich experience

First, we established cooperatively, objectives, activities and products to help us to learn about UNESCO sites, the diversity of expressions of cultural heritage, sustainable development and above all the stories, the experience of people related to certain UNESCO sites.

We planned visits, training courses for students and teachers that made them improve culturally and humanly, making them informed, responsible and active citizens, respecting differences and cultural diversities.

We shared teaching practices and created a European network on the eTwinning platform to exchange teaching methods, and developed cross-curricular practices inside and outside classes.

And so the adventure began!

… and in the first mobility we all met in Poland !

Teachers had their first training meeting and students had a class taught from the partners’ teachers!

POLAND

Everything was very beautiful and we found so many differences from our own countries!

The food, traditions, monuments and stories from Poland were shared with love and friendship and we learned a lot from the students and the local community!

It was time to vote for our project logo!  Every partners´ team voted for their favourite one!

After having a wonderful logo it was time to prepare the mobility to Italy!

The host school organized guided tours of Sicilian UNESCO sites: Syracuse, four cities of Val di Noto (Caltagirone, Modica Ragusa, Noto) and Villa Romana del Casale (Piazza Armerina).

For the visits to Siracusa, a few villages in the Val di Noto and the Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina, the students had to know the local Unesco heritage and had to contact the local citizens, so they could do some questionnaires with the purpose of determining the importance of Unesco Heritage where they live, of their advantages and disadvantages for the environment and for the economy of the declared country.

ITALY

Wonderful unique UNESCO’s monuments!

But students also had an amazing activity: they interviewed local people and asked them if they liked living in a such a special place like That with so many UNESCO heritage!

The Romanian team was already preparing their activities, and for that students had to prepare themselves to participate in an Unesco Formal Meeting organized by the Romanian team.

They did some researches on the topic they wanted to argue about and then presented their opinion to all the participating schools.

There was a trip to Targusoru Vechi Gymnasium where the students were able to see a UNESCO intangible heritage, a dance called Calusarii, a monastery that was built by Vlad the Impeller or Vlad Dracula, and also Bucharest and UNESCO headquarters. We visited Rasnov citadel then to Harman and Prejmer, Brașov City, Sinia and the Peles Castel.

ROMANIA

In the Spanish mobility everything was organized to show Almadén and some Unesco places with great importance!

In this mobility, all students and teachers were able to participate in common activities such as:

• Visiting World Heritage sites:
• Students getting to know each other through photographic activities, video making, ICT usage and social networks.
• Photography Gymkhana in World Heritage sites from Almadén.
• Photography work fulfilment in teams to remember the places visited, acknowledge them and make daily videos for uploading them to the social networks and web page made for the purpose.
• Video contest
• KAHOOT contest
• Group dance
• Virgen del Castillo visit
• Visit to Almadén and Chillón townhalls.

SPAIN

The first Portuguese mobility organized a teachers’ training course, and all partners participated in two different workshops and the main topics were:

“Cross-Curriculum projects- How to create and implement cross-curriculum eTwinning Projects?”

“What different approaches do we have to professional school students”? This second training moment was in Casa Pia de Lisboa- vocational school which is specified on teaching different jobs including watchmaker, cooks and others.

After the workshops the teams had a great opportunity to watch a music performance prepared by Portuguese teachers and students and also participated in a Cultural Unesco’s Portuguese Tour that included visiting Cascais- an important tourist destination and Sintra– the Unesco cultural landscape with a tour guide; Visiting the park and Quinta da Regaleira and Sightseeing of Sintra landscape.

We visited beautiful, digital Presidential Museum, watched the Jeronimo Monastery, the Monument to the Discoveries, Belem National Palace and followed a guide paper made by the students.

In the late afternoon we met  in The Oeiras Winery  restaurant . The farewell meeting  started with beautiful performance about the history and traditions acted by the local people of Paço de Arcos. We were really admired of actors play and the outstanding performance.

PORTUGAL

Everything was going great! From mobility to mobility our friendship was growing, our cultural education was increasing, our knowledge about the world around us was enriched and our dreams were coming true! We were united by bonds of kindness and understanding and we were planning more…much more…

…and suddenly…

March 2019 was time to return to Portugal and this new disease all over the world was getting closer…

The mobility to Portugal happened but our Italian friends couldn’t come, they were the first “victims” from this project that couldn’t travel abroad due to increasing covid19 victims in Italy.

So, we shared with them our adventure:

Even though we really didn’t know about the length nor the terrible results of it at the time, we enjoyed very much being together and most of all, we couldn’t say when we would meet again…

We still had two countries to visit: Bulgaria and back to Poland, and we were afraid we couldn’t complete our wonderful project.

As a result of the increasing cases of infected and dead people around the world, all countries were forbidden to travel abroad and all people were supposed to stay at home, out of streets, schools, public places…out of life…

…and the news came from Bulgaria…

… coordinators started to work online to get more time to finish the project…  in a big common cooperative effort.

And time was given to finish what we started in 2018!  We were very happy, so we waited for one year and in June 2021 we travelled to Bulgaria, a wonderful country with a very rich culture full of kings and tombs and mysteries!

BULGARIA

So, finally, we met again in our final mobility to Poland!

Land of warm-hearted people, rich mysterious traditions, popular festivities, tasty food and unique songs!

POLAND

Just to remember…because we couldn’t post all photos, we give you the video links to remember all the wonderful moments!:

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/707052833001100

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40Bn-GAT6k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHadRxDZgSM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy3nTvMtQyE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIkGTwPfqAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH95EZd5QQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-LeWsfZeHY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJE8TkmzoAA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyIC9L6R09E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkpULHTfquA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M411BlnCnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0elZiSNgbEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6CDphROiUU

https://sites.google.com/view/projectunesco2018-2020

https://zso-jozefow.pl/mobilnosc-w-polsce-w-ramach-projektu-erasmus/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll0aMRmQVyI

https://www.kazanlak.com/news-34269.html?fbclid=IwAR2eVfIqm3eM54st8msgzf1CDs9qZnGZUd5rhY801RKlC92jrchtRjjljn4

https://www.academia.edu/40864100/Seminarul_eTwinning_Component%C4%83_a_programului_ErasmusPlus, https://www.academia.edu/40186819/SEMINAR_eTwinning_Component%C7%8E_a_programului_Erasmus_2014_2020Edi%C5%A3ia_a_V_a

https://www.academia.edu/40165951/Stelu%C8%9Be_pe_harta_Europei

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ebdjoaquimbarros