BELONGtoEU – Building European Learning Opportunities and Networks for Growth in VET has officially started its journey, bringing together vocational education providers and higher education from across Europe to strengthen the place of European Union topics in VET.
Co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Networks action, BELONGtoEU is a three-year project involving six organisations from five European and candidate countries: APRO Formazione and the University of Eastern Piedmont (UPO) from Italy, ASUC Boro Petrushevski from North Macedonia, Galway Technical Institute (GTI) from Ireland, Pärnumaa Vocational Education Centre (PVEC) from Estonia, and CEBANC from Spain.
With a total budget of €299,926, the project aims to reduce the perceived distance between citizens and the European Union by starting from education and, in particular, from vocational education and training.
Bringing EU topics into vocational education
BELONGtoEU focuses primarily on teachers and trainers as drivers of change. The project will equip VET professionals with knowledge, teaching resources and methodologies that can help them introduce European topics into their regular teaching activities in an accessible and engaging way.
The initiative will address subjects such as EU institutions and policies, European values, rights and opportunities, active citizenship and democratic participation, helping students better understand how the European Union affects their everyday lives and future opportunities.
Throughout the project, partners will analyse teachers’ and students’ needs, collect and exchange good practices, organise dedicated training activities for teachers and develop a multilingual e-Toolkit containing teaching materials and resources on European Union topics.
Teachers will also have the opportunity to learn from one another through international activities, including a workshop in Italy, a training trip to Brussels and co-teaching and job-shadowing exchanges between partner VET schools. The materials developed will then be tested in at least 40 classes, reaching around 800 VET students, before being refined and made openly available online.
A project identity designed by VET students
The launch of BELONGtoEU also marked an important first step in creating its visual identity.
Rather than developing the project logo exclusively through an external design process, APRO Formazione involved its Graphic Design students in a real project-based learning experience. Students were invited to develop different proposals for the BELONGtoEU logo, working from the project’s objectives, European dimension and key concepts such as belonging, connection, participation and cooperation.
The proposals were then reviewed through an internal selection process, which led to the choice of the official BELONGtoEU logo.
The initiative gave students the opportunity to work on a genuine European communication brief and see their creative skills applied beyond the classroom. At the same time, it reflects one of the principles behind BELONGtoEU itself: making Europe more tangible for VET learners by connecting European topics with their studies, skills and everyday experiences.
The selected logo will now accompany BELONGtoEU throughout its three-year journey, across the project website, communication materials, events, teaching resources and international activities.
Co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme – Jean Monnet Networks.