ERASMUS MINUS BULLYING. Practices in Prevention and Intervention in European Schools (EMB for short) Context/background Bullying as a phenomenon has always been present at our schools and we observe with sadness that in some communities bullying is regarded as a natural art of school routine, passed down from generation to generation. In recent years teachers from all across Europe have witnessed an increase in aggressive behaviour and social exclusion among students, partly due to the financial crisis in Europe. Bullying is malicious and deliberate actions that can cause serious psychological problems and even provoke suicidal thoughts. That's why ten schools across Europe want to join forces and fight against this disharmony that is spreading in our schools and instead build up school communities that enhance the values of safety, respect and inclusion. Main objectives The rationale behind our planned actions in "ERASMUS MINUS BULLYING. Practices in Prevention and Intervention in European Schools" is that we need ideas to create safer, violence-free, friendlier and inviting school environments. The aim of our project is to develop good practices for the prevention of bullying and strategies for dealing with bullying cases. In order to achieve this we need new, student-centered approaches. Student involvement in anti-bullying work is an effective way of bullying prevention. Another aim of our partnership is development of understanding of other cultures. Students will develop their knowledge on partner countries, which will be useful for many school subjects, like geography, history, literature and art. The level of motivation to learn English and use it in practice will rise significantly. Furthermore, the ICT skills of both students and teachers will improve when innovating teaching methods are used. By encouraging our students to take initiative we believe we are taking serious action towards the formation of actively and effectively functioning citizens for the Europe we are dreaming of. Number and profile of participants We are ten partner schools from Greece, Germany, Poland, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium, Turkey and Italy. We are comprehensive secondary schools with the exception of the Belgian school which is vocational for special needs. While this project will be complementary to currently running programmes like Mediation in Greece and the KiVa school anti-bullying program in Finland, most schools need to establish strategies for prevention and intervention of bullying. Due to the diversity of our 10 countries in culture, religion, historical tradition, political system and economical situation we believe we can learn a lot from each other by building on previous experiences and concepts already existing in individual schools. Description of activities We have divided our activities into 7 modules which include 7 project meetings. The planning and the collaboration of activities will be organised through the eTwinning Portal. The TwinSpace tools will be used for project planning, communication and publishing of project products which include questionnaires, lesson plans, logos, songs, a film, drama, short stories, comics, a basic bullying dictionary in our ten languages and English, regulations, etc. Another aim of the project is to make use of a variety of ICT tools like Survey Monkey, Quizlet, Glogger and Story Bird in order to publish the results of the project activities on our own blog (http://ourerasmus.blogspot.com) and in the Project Diary on TwinSpace. Both teachers and students will participate in all the 7 project meetings, which will contain training sessions/workshops, planning of project activities and production of materials for our end products, the EMB booklet with CD and DVD and the EMB Anti-bullying guide. One of the project activities will be a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where we will draw the attention of politicians from many countries to the importance of school violence questions. Methodology Our central approaches will be learning by doing, cooperative learning and peer education. With the help of creative teaching methods (drama, music, art, film, ICT) the project activities aim at helping students to understand the nature of bullying, to get a better self-esteem and becoming more active citizens both locally and globally. Desired results, impacts and long-term benefits Thanks to the project activities our students will become more sensitive to bullying and if victims, they will be helped. We desire elimination of violence in our schools and fighting the related school dropout. The greater impact we anticipate is inclusion, participation, solidarity, respect and involvement of our students in school life, principles which appear in the Lisbon Treaty. The ultimate benefit for future European Citizens is our very challenging input in the Erasmus + platform, the EMB booklet with CD and DVD and the EMB Anti-bullying guide.