Our school is located in one of the most sparsely populated rural Lithuanian territories. There is a lack of social services, an extremely high level of unemployment, risk of social exclusion and quite little spaces for children’s self-realization. Also, there is a problem of the decreasing number of students in our school due to declining birthrate and emigration. The nearest city is 50 kilometres away from the area where the school is located. The biggest part of students, 76 per cent, are taken to school from other areas and only the rest live nearby school. Feed-in (because of the disadvantaged position of the family) is provided to 45 percent of pupils. There are 17 percent of families at risk children and 41 percent of the children from multichild families. Children from incomplete families make 30 per cent. Part of students lack learning motivation and have problems with behaviour. Moreover, the possibilities of our pupils are restricted by negative social phenomenon in families. It is crucial for us to participate in the project, as it is high time something has to be done more thinking locally and acting globally. Changes due to climate change and threats to environment are inevitable, and it is school students that have to be the starting point to make changes, this way they will share their knowledge/new understanding in their families and will further spread the message. By establishing international partnership we will ensure reaching wider target audience, exchanging good practices and making participants aware that the Earth is a home to every living being.
We are experienced in international projects, such as Comenius, Erasmus+ projects (KA1 and KA2): in 2012-2014 – Comenius multilateral project for schools “The United Colours of the European Nature”, which was related with the protection of environment. Also, we have had several eTwinning projects connected with environment, such as “Let’s Save the Earth, our Paradise. We also attended KA1 youth exchange project called “Stop Wasting”; our school also has a “Green Flag” for the commitment to nature protection and constantly participates in national contests/projects that are directed towards environmental consciousness. Our students are conscious about environmental issues, so we can share our expertise with partner countries.