"Palmeros in Europe 2019" is a mobility project for Vocational Education and Training (VET) students and staff -KA102- framed within the Erasmus + program whose beneficiary is IES Virgen de Las Nieves.
IES Virgen de Las Nieves is a state school, certified in the standard ISO 9001 and with the ECHE charter, which teaches:
- VET of eight professional groups: Physical and Sporting Activities, Administration and Management, Agriculture, Commerce and Marketing, Electricity and Electronics, Hotel Industry and Tourism, Health and Transport and Maintenance of Vehicles.
- Intermediate Special Regime Sports Education: Football and Rescue and Lifesaving. The educational offer includes training courses of Initial Level VET and Adapted VET Cycles (ISCED2), Intermediate Level VET Cycles (ISCED3), Intermediate Special Regime Sports Education (ISCED3) and Higher Level VET Cycles (ISCED5).
It is located in La Palma, one of the non-capital islands of the Canary Islands Archipelago, from where access to the mainland and other places in Europe is quite complicated. The majority of the students, who come from all the municipalities of the island, belong to families that work in the sectors of agriculture and services or who are in a situation of unemployment.
To develop the project, IES Virgen de Las Nieves will benefit from the collaboration of three homologous VET schools who will act as partners:
- ROC Arcus College, state school located in Heerlen, the Netherlands.
- VSIA Rigas Turisma un radosas industrijas tehnikums, school located in Riga, Latvia.
- META Don-Bosco Szakgimnázium, school located in Budapest, Hungary.
- Escola Proffisional da Nazaré, school located in Nazaré, Portugal.
With the development of this project, IES Virgen de Las Nieves aims to achieve the following objectives:
• To ensure that the population of the island of La Palma, which lives in an ultra-peripheral region, opens its horizons and acquires greater awareness of the European project and EU values.
• To give their students the opportunity to train in a different business environment, improving their professional, linguistic and personal competencies.
• To give staff managerial tools and methodologies that allow them to increase the quality of teaching, as well as improving their linguistic competence and personal enrichment.
The project will have an impact on the development of La Palma Island in the long term, since the participants will be able to transfer the knowledge and experiences acquired to the insular business sector. Contact networks with companies and international institutions will be established and the development of a consciousness of citizenship and European identity will be promoted. In addition, with this project, IES Virgen de Las Nieves will continue to improve their management skills and internationalization strategies, which will help with the continuity of future European programs.
