Learners in the schools involved are on different levels of diverse ethnic and cultural origins. Quite an important amount of these learners come from disadvantaged families with low opportunities for learning, travelling or self-educating. These learners usually have very poor general knowledge, very low skills in foreign languages and ICT, no motivation for school in general, and above all, easily give up when they face difficulties in their learning. So, it appears judicious to us to awaken these learners’ interest in the surrounding world, to shape their positive attitude and to boost their motivation by engaging them in a challenging partnership about culture and creativity. Their active involvement and personal investment in this project will, on the one hand, enable them to become creative, develop team spirit and acquire new skills in ICT and foreign languages to be able to respond to the requirements of the labour market. On the other hand, they will avoid failure and regain their self-esteem and self-confidence. Besides, the partnership also permits constructive exchanges of good practices between European teachers, and promotes the incorporation of innovative digital teaching methods in the teachers’ daily pedagogical practice, which is beneficial, not only for these target groups but for other learners in the partner schools as well.

Our partnership is a 12-15 year-old learners-focused project in the first place. The project does not deal with European cultures and ICT as subjects of study but we intend to use them as means to challenge our learners and motivate them to acquire some important transversal skills in foreign languages, ICT, working method, organization, self-confidence and self-esteem so that they can engage themselves in challenging activities to learn how to overcome their learning difficulties. This to teach them how to resist and take a challenge to the end and not give up easily when difficulties come across. We are aiming at using these means to tackle early school leaving and foster perseverance in learning.