Project partners

The schools involved in the project are four. Italy, Poland and Spain have been working together on Erasmus+ KA1 and Erasmus+ KA2 for many years, the Portuguese partner has been found on the eTwinning Platform. We are schools very similar in the organization so it will be easier to work together and, surely, there will be not many problems in carrying out all the activities, since during the last years we have learnt so much from each other already and feel that there is a lot more to come. When we contacted the Portuguese school, they have immediately shown a great enthusiasm to join the project. All the four partners have quite good facilities and have a consolidated experience in the organization of Erasmus projects and volunteering.

Three of us are collaborating in an Erasmus Plus project “Able and Disabled: let’s play together” and last November, during a staff meeting in Spain, we visited the Sonrisa, an association of “Clowns in Hospitals” and we soon decided to plan a new project based on three key words: smiling, volunteering and inclusion. In February we had a short-term students’ meeting in Amsterdam during which the students had a workshop on acrogym and a workshop in collaboration with a Dutch association of “Clowns in Hospitals”. We were particularly impressed by the students’ enthusiasm and now we are more determined to start this project.

Liceo Cavalleri will coordinate the project. Working on the Erasmus project “Able and Disabled: let’s play together!” the three of us had to prepare a video interview to a clown in hospital so we have already established a collaboration with a clown in hospital association, the Portuguese school will do the same. The Spanish Sonrisa, the Italian VIP Verbano and Dottor Sorriso ONLUS, the Portuguese Operação Nariz Vermelho, the Polish Dr Clown Foundation are the associations we are going to work with us. Their collaboration will be essential for the development of the project since they will have to help us in the students' training and the implementation of the activities by the hospitals, the Alzheimer cafés, the centres of the children with Down Syndrome and the Youth and Elderly clubs.

Each school will focus on a particular area according to their skills, competences, the previous experiences. Liceo Cavalleri has already contacts with Alzheimer associations and Alzheimer Cafes. In the past they had a Comenius project on the relationship between the young and the elderly. This experience will be very helpful for the partners. IES Bendinat has already had some projects to support volunteering with the Baleari Down Syndrome association ASNINO.

The Portuguese school has contact with associations which work in hospitals, Operação Nariz Vermelho whose main purpose is to continuously ensure an intervention program within the pediatric services, through the visit of professional clowns. Finally, the Polish school has had previous experiences on depression and isolation project with Youth clubs.