SocialErasmus

About the Project

Erasmus is an opportunity to get to know new cultures and education systems and it can be an inspiration for life. The aim of the SocialErasmus project is to allow international students to benefit at the utmost from the local community and enrich the latter through the international background of the students. It promotes as well a social attitude amongst international students all over Europe. International students are invited to volunteer in the framework of the SocialErasmus project under three main areas of action: education, charity and environment. Best practices of the actions in the education field include information sessions in schools “Europe at School”, in the environment field planting trees to raise awareness “Erasmus Forest” project or the “fire prevention” project and in the charity field activities aimed at helping less favoured children such as the International Santa Claus.

The SocialErasmus project enables people to experience something new and to get new perspectives as well as learn more about European cultures. This gives a highly valuable contribution to the learning mobility period for international students and local communities. SocialErasmus was initiated in 2008 in Poland and rapidly showed to be a big success. ESN thus decided to transfer this experience to other countries and it became an ESN International level project by 2010.

SocialErasmus has three main areas of action:

• education
• charity
• envirnonment

Aims

The aim of the SocialErasmus project is to complete the stay abroad with the original values of the Erasmus Programme. Erasmus is supposed to be an opportunity to get to know new cultures and education systems as well as to make new unforgettable friendships, but also it should be a kind of inspiration for a future life. Moreover, the SocialErasmus project enables people to experience something new, as a consequence, Erasmus programme participants will get a new perspective, which would be beyond their cognitive abilities, if they did not take part in the Erasmus program. Taking into consideration the above factors, the main slogan of the project is: Reach higher! Go further! Go Social! 

History of the Project

It was in 2008,  the tenth anniversary of the Erasmus Program in Poland under the motto of the New Era of Erasmus that the project was created.

These celebrations allowed us to evaluate our Erasmus activities and to formulate plans for the future. The motto the 'New Era of Erasmus' was not coined by accident. Having entered a new decade, a new dimension of the program has been initiated, namely its major project called SocialErasmus, which was established by Justyna Adamiec and Magdalena Pawelczyk. As the project has appeared to be a big success in Poland, it was introduced to the international level and voted during CNR Warsaw 2010 to become an international Erasmus Student Network project.

Examples of SocialErasmus activities