The LIFE Project LIFE stands for Linking Interests For Europe. The Need When our students graduate at our schools, they are not ready for professional life and often go to higher education or university. Thus, we feel that there is a growing gap between what we teach our students and what companies expect from them. Moreover, most of our students do not take or are not offered the subject of Economics and most of them have no idea of how a company works. Finally, as a school, we feel the need to give our students more real life challenges as to practise their skills and to make them more aware of all the opportunities in the European community. We believe that by doing so the students' chances of finding a job later on will be increased. Unfortunately, our schools too often lack contacts and partners in the world of local companies. Linking Interests For Europe By linking the interests of schools, students and local companies we believe that we can create a win-win situation for all partners involved and thus build a stronger Europe together. We feel most local companies may not be eager to offer our students work experience as they are not yet fit for the labour market. They may see it as a waste of time. At the same time, they are struggling to open up new markets for their products. The students of the partner schools could be their “ambassadors” in three other European countries. In return our students will be able to practise their communicative skills in real life, get insights into the structure of a company and the challenges of an employee, become familiar with the world of marketing and business and become aware of what it means to live in the European community. The Basic Idea Students from Germany, Belgium, Italy and Portugal will contact and/or visit local companies with the offer to have their products promoted by students in three other European countries at three different European LIFE Trade Fairs. Furthermore, the students will produce three promotional videos of each company in three other European languages. The companies can use these videos themselves, but these videos will also be shown internationally at the European LIFE Trade Fairs and published on the LIFE website. In order to prepare the trade fairs transnational conferences will be organised by each participating school. During such a transnational conference students who do not take Economics as a subject at school will be trained in business communication, marketing and publicity. They will visit local companies, which they will have to promote. The Planning of the LIFE project Four schools from four different European countries are participating. Each school will organise one transnational conference in cooperation with local companies, whose products will be presented at European LIFE Trade Fairs. Other local companies, political representatives, parents and the press will be invited to the opening of the fairs. The project will last for two years. Quality Management At the end of each transnational conference and European LIFE Trade Fair all participants (students, teachers, companies and parents) will assess their participation and the organisation of each event. We will use the online Kwik Surveys tools. Each school will have a LIFE project coordinator whose task will be to communicate the results of these surveys with their teams as to improve the quality of our LIFE project. The German school will coordinate the project. Mission Statement We believe that by linking the interests of schools, students and local companies we can strengthen our students and our region. Most of all, we believe that by linking the interests of the four different schools and their different regions we can benefit from each other and build a stronger Europe. Education, young people and the growth of local companies will be the motor for economic expansion and prosperity in Europe.