Escola Secundária Cacilhas-Tejo, Portugal

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Escola Secundária Cacilhas-Tejo,  Portugal

29.05.2022 – 04.06.2022

A meeting on “Volunteering for local communities” took place in Portugal. The project meeting was preceded by the involvement of students in the creation of the Active Citizen Circle in each of the partner schools. In the three months preceding the trip, the students learned how to diagnose social needs in the local community and undertook volunteer activities at the benefit of their local community.  During the meeting, all partners exchanged their experiences on this topic.

As in the case of other meetings, the activities were divided into modules – lecture, workshop and field.

The lecture module was devoted to volunteer activities in the town of Almada. The host presented the process of identifying social needs in the place of residence, analysing them and creating a volunteer activity programme responding to these needs.

The participants also learned about various ways of supporting social activity in the municipality and public institutions and non-governmental organizations operating in this area. The workshops included classes whose starting point were the following questions: is it worth being involved in the life of the local community, what benefits can we achieve thanks to it, what is civil society, is it worth being an active citizen. A variety of work methods were used in the implementation of this task.

During the field part, the students will jointly undertake activities for the benefit of the local community in Almada based on a previously located needs analysis and develop a program.

The issue of active citizenship has been incorporated into the daily educational practice of the partner schools.