THE FIRST STEPS OF OUR PROJECT: THE TRANSNATIONAL MEETING IN SWEDEN

THE FIRST STEPS OF OUR PROJECT: THE TRANSNATIONAL MEETING IN SWEDEN

The agenda that the general coordinator, Mrs Christina Bartalis, and the Swedish Erasmus team prepared for the five invited delegations of teachers was supposed to begin with the official welcome by the school headmaster, Mr Nils Andersson, on Tuesday 8th, although the already said official welcome and some other activities had to be postponed to the following day. Actually, the official start of the project had been on September 9th 2019 and there was hardly time for most partners to find flights for the right dates of this meeting.

However, the German and the Spanish delegations, which had already arrived in Karlshamn, were lucky to take a tour through the history of this splendid and huge school and its surroundings on the first day of the programme. Guided by the interesting explanations of one of the members of the Swedish Erasmus team, Mr Ulf Andersson, they crossed through the tunnel of time following the different periods of the Vägga school facilities. He also took the guest teachers in a short stroll through Karlshamn town centre in the evening.

In the afternoon, two teachers of the Swedish Erasmus team, Mr Niclas Wahlgren and Mrs María Borrás, drove the delegations to Kalskrona, in the archipelago of Blekinge, which is said to be the only Baroque City in Sweden. It is the largest city in the province and the home base of the Swedish navy.

During this cultural visit, the Erasmus teachers learnt about this famous coastal and naval city, which was founded in the 17th century, and visited its amazing Marine Museum. In spite of the heavy rain, the visitors could enjoy the Stortorget in the heart of the old city centre, which is the largest square in Sweden, and at its edge there are two Baroque churches and the City Hall.

Large parts of the old town centre and the naval base are almost completely preserved and were declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998.

On 9th October, as it was scheduled, the six partner schools started the meetings to deal with the items of the agenda that our coordinator had decided for these days.

Among the activities achieved and topics dealt in these meetings, the six schools were presented to the rest of the partners by means of videos or power points and explanations live.

Besides, the mobility dates for Portugal, Germany, Spain and Italy were settled, the responsibilities of each school were distributed in terms of dissemination and documentation, the protocol to host students and the selection and number of students, the costs and bookkeeping in every mobility and in general anything related to the tasks to be carried out before and after the next meeting in Greece.

Our coordinator, Mrs Christina Bartalis, suggested getting the project logo and the 1st mobility evaluation results as soon as possible and the delegations continued working until 10th October afternoon and that evening they had a goodbye dinner in a bowling centre.

Near a beautiful two-kilometre sea promenade, the statues of "Karl Oskar & Kristina" said goodbye to the meeting participants and kept on looking into the sea. This monument commemorates the massive Swedish emigration to USA in the 19th century and reminds us that, in a way, all human beings may be considered migrants on this earth. We are sure this is a good beginning for our project.