Towards Grenzenlos@school goes Europe VV(enue): Vienna/Brigittenau Youthhostel Austria D(ates): 13.-15.1.2015 (arrival of participants 12.1.2015, departure of participants 15.1.2015) The Austrian organisation Grenzenlos was known for many years for intercultural exchanges where people travelled in countries far away to experience While conflicts between Nations in Europe become less, more and more cultural conflicts rise up among societies themselves. The basic idea of Grenzenlos – respect among people no matter which background they have - is a global issue but it can not be tackled with travelling of individuals alone anymore. We saw that there is a need to discover „the strangeness“ in our local environment. Therefore we decided to work in places where the course for the future is set: schools and especially vocational schools. In 2009 we developed an education program called Grenzenlos@schools (More infos at www.schools.or.at) in Austrian vocational schools in order to allow pupils to grow on their own personal and social level and to foster respect for cultural and social diversity. The concept of the educational program itself was developed by the University of Passau and friendly introduced to us by Prof. Dirschler. (More infos under http://www.inkup.uni-passau.de/fremdgeher.htm) We discovered soon that Passau and Vienna are geographically not so far away but the needs of Austrian pupils were still different. Therefore Grenzenlos has adjusted it 2010 successfully with the feedback of several schools. In 2012 the project Grenzenlos@schools won funds at the initiative Vielfalter which covers the project costs for vocational schools in Wels and Vienna. In the previous years we discovered in our work with other European organisations that there is a big interest in the program as many institutions and organisations face similiar challenges of the big word “integration” in their own environment. Within"Towards Grenzenlos@school goes Europe" we would like to test the methods with our international partners and create a work plan on how we can develop a constant partnership as well as a training for trainers The aim of this project is to...  create a concrete working plan with our partners on how ->  to promote social and cultural inclusion in schools especially in vocational schools  support non formal and intercultural learning in vocational schools  link formal learning within the non formal learning field  transfer the methods of Grenzenlos@schools to our international partners in Italy, Germany, Estonia, Belgium and Finland  test the methods of Grenzenlos@schools on an international level and receive feedback  underline the importance of linking formal and non-formal education  strengthen the partnership among organisations from different education actors (NGO´s,universities, vocational schools, local authorities, trade, etc)  create a working plan for future activities