Working meeting in Azores-Portugal

The meeting in Angra do Heroísmo took place in daysFebruary 12-19, 2022. Five students and two teachers participating in the project took part in it from our school. Apart from our group, the meeting was attended by students and teachers from all partner schools. All the visiting students stayed in the homes of their Portuguese peers, thanks to which they had the opportunity to learn about everyday life in the host country and make friends with the students of the local school, which often resulted in longer contacts and even visits during the holidays.

 

The first meeting of partners in European school cooperation projects is devoted primarily to getting to know the partner schools and the cities and countries in which they are located. Teachers also deal with setting a detailed work plan for the coming year and the dates of subsequent meetings. Our youth prepared multimedia presentations and films in English, in which they presented the school, city and country. Similar presentations were shown by students from other schools.

Angra do Heroísmo is the oldest and second largest city in the Azores, an archipelago of nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean belonging to Portugal, located on the island of Terceira. On a Polish scale, it is small, as it has just over 20,000 inhabitants, but during the heyday of the Portuguese colonial empire it was the largest port of transatlantic shipping, an obligatory berthing place for sailing ships until the 19th century, when the steam turbine was invented, and its former importance is perfectly reflected by its architecture and urban layout.

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Our partner school, Escola Básica Integrada de Angra do Heroísmo, is a public primary and secondary school of lower and vocational type. About 1,500 students attend it. The school is very active in the field of international cooperation - students take part in many European school cooperation projects, both direct and remote. She obtained the title of eTwinning School, awarded by the European Commission to schools in Europe most involved in international online cooperation, and her teachers take part in many professional development courses abroad.

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As part of activities thematically related to the project, students in international groups  developed surveys on the lifestyle of young people and the structure of families in our cities,  as well as questions for interviews with employees of aid institutions, using for this purpose the question proposals prepared by individual schools. We also visited three institutions dealing with the care of the elderly, children and the poor: Santa Casa da Misericórdia, Cáritas and Centro Intergeracional de Santa Bárbara. In the first one we listened to a presentation on the organization of care for the elderly in the Azores and their own activities in this field, in the second we got acquainted with the organization of collecting gifts for the poor and their distribution, and in the last one we heard about an interesting initiative in the field of childcare and the elderly, where both age groups have many activities together where they can enjoy interacting with each other and learn from each other. We also met some of the class participants and our two students even tried crocheting with one of the older ladies.

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As part of getting to know the partner country, we took a guided walk around the historic center of Angra do Heroísmo and a trip to the Serra do Cume and Miradouro do Facho viewpoints, from where we had a breathtaking view of the Terceira fields separated by stone walls and the Praia da Vitória bay, as well as to the volcanic caldera, where we saw Furnas do Enxofre fumaroles, and entering the volcanic chimney of Algar do Carvão we experienced an exciting adventure of entering the earth's interior. We were also supposed to go out into the open ocean to watch dolphins and whales, but to our disappointment, because we had already set ourselves to meet the sperm whale, the Atlantic was too rough for such an escapade. So we only sailed around Ilheus das Cabras (Goat Islands), which gave us a foretaste of ocean sailing anyway, because we came back all wet. Some teachers, including ours, went for a walk to the top of Monte Brasil. We also visited the local town hall, where we listened to the mayor's extremely eloquent and excellent language talk about the history of the Azores, in particular Angra do Heroísmo, and the geography and geology of the archipelago. Portuguese families spared no effort to make students familiar with the local cuisine and customs, while Portuguese teachers played this role in relation to teachers from other countries.  

 

The meeting went smoothly, we had no health problems and the Portuguese authorities waived the coronavirus test on the sixth day of stay for the fully vaccinated. We are very happy that we were able to finally meet and successfully implement the planned activities, because it significantly raised the morale of all project participants and after returning to the country with new enthusiasm we threw ourselves into the whirlwind of local activities. After all, the next meeting is already at the end of March in the Netherlands, so  be well prepared.