TOURISM FOR TEENAGERS Ours is a pupil-centred project and it aims at involving students of five different schools, making them aware of the importance of their cultural and historical heritage. We want them to understand that cultural diversity is important but also that different identities have the same value and sometimes a common or similar background. This will be done by encouraging our pupils to become “tourist guides” to the pupils coming from the other four countries, by letting them select what they consider historically and culturally relevant in the area where they live. It is important not to be too specific about this aspect at this stage, since – as this is a pupil-centred project – it is fundamental to share the ideas with them without influencing their choices too much. The five participants are secondary schools from Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Poland and Greece. Each school has some specific experience in the world of partnerships and exchanges, and they all belong to countries that have had serious economic problems in recent years. Each school will also invite local authorities to participate in the project, considering the fact that they might be interested in the development of tourism in their areas. The partnership will begin in each school where the pupils will be asked to recognize and analyse the historical and cultural aspects of their own country and specifically of their local area. At this step, with the support of their teachers, they will also get into contact with local authorities which are in charge of tourism and culture. At the same time they will be also asked to write down what they expect they will find in the other countries. During this first phase, teachers will also select the students who seem to be more active in the project and make them leaders of the group. A short, introductory meeting will be organized between teachers to focus on the details of the project itself and discuss possible difficulties. The activities during the project will be divided as follows: 1) Local activities: in each school the programme of the visits to the local cultural/historical/natural sites will be prepared by students under the supervision of the teachers; local authorities will also be involved. The programmes will also include presentations, short movies, leaflets, games, sports activities and any other thing that the students may envisage, considering that the target of the project is teenagers like them. 2) Transnational meetings among partner schools: each meeting will be attended by some accompanying teachers and selected pupils. Here the local students will “guide” the others to the local cultural/historical sites and will present all the material which they have previously prepared. During the meetings the data gathered at the beginning of the project will be compared and this will help students understand the similarities and differences between their culture and the one they are visiting, and also the differences between what they expected to find (which is often altered by prejudices) and reality. 3) Language and ICT lessons will be held in each nation. Some of the language lessons will be held during short term exchanges of students in Spain, Greece and Italy and the ICT lessons in Poland and Czech Rep. 4) During the whole project teachers, students and local authorities will keep in touch by e-mails, social networks and e-twinning. All the materials produced during the project period will be published on the project website, and all activities will be strictly time defined so that partners complete anything to which they have committed themselves on time. 5) The project will be monitored constantly through questionnaires in order to see if it might be necessary to adjust it in the course of events. The evaluation of the final product will be obtained through satisfaction questionnaires, tests and comments from all the subjects involved in the dissemination of the results (parents, local authorities, other schools). The comparison of similarities and differences will make the cultural connection between nations clear to the pupils and more in general to everybody involved in the project. The recognition of surviving cultural diversity in a common framework will be the leading idea of this project. This process will involve reflecting on how we interact at a social level, and how this process brings a wealth of stimulating ideas. The ultimate aims of the partnership are: 1) to create a final product which might be useful to other schools and groups of young people in different European countries, so that they might decide to continue it by adding new materials helping it to become a “lifelong learning project”; 2) to allow our pupils to come into contact with the working environment of the world of tourism and entertainment, which might help them get some specific skills required by the labour market.