Spain (October 2018)

Arrival of all teams, three teams arrived at Santiago de Compostela´s airport. Austria,Greece and Italy. The Czech team arrived at A Coruña’s airport and the Portuguese team arrived later on in the afternoon by van.

The students were taken to their host homes by their host families and the teachers checked in a their hotel. Later on all teams went out for dinner, after a very long and tiring day travelling.

Teams arrive early at school to start of with warming up activities which take place at the school’s gym.
Host students take their guests for a tour around the school.
Following this the official presentation of the 3rd LTA is held at the school’s assembly hall.

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After the presentations we set off to the Ronsel Foundation which is opposite the school.
At the Ronsel Foundation, Rafael Vázquez, the coordinator of the foundation, explains the role of the foundation which is to help young entrepreneurs set up their own business.
Two entrepreneurs present their business to the students and teachers. Students and teachers ask questions about their experience as entrepreneurs and how the foundation has helped them achieve their goals.

Next to the Rounsel foundation we visit the Local council’s facilities for young entrepreneurs that the council has to facilitate the creation of business projects in town. We tour “Vivero de Empresas” where we have a chance to see all the spaces that the council offers for entrepreneurs. We see different working posts, conference rooms and meeting rooms where entrepreneurs can have business meetings, video conferences and also where they receive advice on how to start their own business project. The tour is lead by head of the council’s “Vivero de Empresas”

We head back to school for a well deserved coffee break after which the first workshop is held with school presentations of their business projects and then a follow up on the POP app which had been briefly explained in Austria. Spanish students help the different teams to set up their app, explain how it works and then work on it.

At 14.00 students go home to their host families for lunch and a free afternoon.
Teachers stay for lunch at school and then go for a brief walk before the meeting which would take place in the afternoon.

Students and teachers arrive at school, to head off to Someso Vocational school.
At Someso, we are greeted by Juan Carlos Purriños the headmaster and Montserrat Lourido the Co-headmistress. The head of entrepreneurial projects presents the different projects the school has been working at. These projects include, projects to create a sustainable home made of recycled and organic materials. A hairdresser project which only uses organic and natural products for body and hair treatments.
After the presentation of the several projects, students and teachers tour the school and have the opportunity to check out some of these projects as well as all the different workshops, car, carpentry, personal care as well as a place for young entrepreneurs to be able to develop their own projects, this facility, which is free, has working office spaces and all the facilities to connect their computers and also receive advice on how to create a business.

After a small coffee break at the school, we head of for the official reception at the town hall by the deputy mayor. We are received by the deputy mayor, Silvia Cameán, at the town hall and welcomed to the city.

Following the reception at the town hall, students and teachers take a tour of the old part of the town, visiting the most emblematic places of the old part of the city, like “San Carlos garden” “Azcárraga Square” visit to “Galerías” where they can see the typical glass and wood architecture of the town.

After this short visit to the old part of the town, students head home for lunch with their host families and teachers have a typical Galician style lunch at school.

In the afternoon and taking advantage of the weather we head of to Bastiagueiro beach in the outskirts of A Coruña, for a beginners Surfing course for students and teachers.
The activity is lead by Conchi García Rivero, a P.E. teacher from school and gives the opportunity for the vast majority of the students to have their first surfing experience. I must highlight that for two of the Czech students it was the first time they had seen the sea and had their first surfing-swimming experience.

We started the day with a workshop to continue, our business projects, shaping our projects and also continuing with the development of the POP application for mobiles.

At 10 o’clock we leave to visit the “Pull and Bear” headquarter in Narón, 60km from A Coruña, the purpose of the visit was to visit what had started as a small family business and nowadays is a multinational company, Pull and Bear is one of the retailers from the Inditex group which also owns the worldwide brand “Zara”.
At Pull and Bear we were greeted by one of the employees, and the first part of the visit was to see how the warehouse works, how merchandise is received and then dealt with. We were explained the process of reception, new labelling and then how all the merchandise is organised and then processed to be distributed all over the world. We were able to see all the process involved from reception to departure. After the visit to the warehouse we were taken to the main building where we were received by a P.R. who was going to explain how the company works and how everything to do with the shop is organised and dealt with.

We were shown all the process of how clothes were created, how they were designed and later chosen to be sold at the shop. We also saw how the webpage was managed and updated. We had the opportunity of watching a photoshoot of models, modelling clothes for the company and all the process involved in the photoshoot. We visited all the departments: commercial, marketing, retail, IT, and we were even shown all the materials and accessories that were chosen to make the clothes. The whole process of designing and then reaching the store was thoroughly explained. We were also shown a real Pull and Bear shop and all the shop windows that are created for the different world markets, although the shop is not open for retail, it was a working duplicate of the shops around the world, the process of displaying the contents of the store was thoroughly explained. Students and teacher made a lot of enquiries both at the warehouse and the Pull and Bear HQ.

The afternoon was spent with a bike tour around the town, we rented bicycles, some of our host students brought their own, and with Tono a tour around the main part of the town was done, mainly from the lighthouse “Torre de Hércules” to the Millennium monument on the other end of the seaside walk. Students and Teachers were able to enjoy and get to know better the layout of the town and also of it main landmarks.

We started the day early and left for Santiago de Compostela a world heritage town, famous for its pilgrims and the “Camino de Santiago” the pilgrims road which originates in France. We first started the visit to the world famous cathedral were the apostle Santiago is buried and worshipped. We split in two groups, local students and the Portuguese team and the other teams went with an English speaking guide. We were able to visit the cathedral, but most of all the rooftops of the temple, where the origin,construction and history of the cathedral and the town were explained.

We later visited the local market, to see the local produce and also with activities for the students. Students were handed out a questionnaire and asked to enquire about a serious of products on sale at the market, their origins and also their price. Students had a chance to check out many of the local products on sale, especially the fish and shellfish section very characteristic of Galicia.

After a short break, students were given another task which was a photographic gymkhana that consisted in finding out the main landmarks in Santiago, photograph them and then report back and find out who had completed the gymkhana in the least time. After the gymkhana it was lunchtime, students and teachers had free time for lunch and then heading back to A Coruña, to visit one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe “Marineda” students and teachers had free time to do a spot of shopping. We returned to school on the local bus and students headed back home with their host students.

On Friday we started the morning with workshops to progress on the different projects and teachers held a meeting to summarize future tasks for the next LTA meetings in Italy and The Czech Republic. During this workshop, we asked students and teachers to participate in the school’s allotments creating with flowers, the flags and logo of the Erasmus project. The initial idea was to plant a tree, but owing to the lack of space the planting of flowers with the colours of each country was chosen.

After a short coffee break we headed of walking to the “Paideia Foundation” in María Pita square.
The “Paideia Foundation” promotes social innovation through innovative and sustainable projects.It encourages and helps socially disadvantaged groups providing equal opportunities and economic development. We were shown the different projects that the foundation is involved in especially where vulnerable groups are introduced to the labour market helping them to find their first job and also by the different work creation projects that the foundation has in collaboration with the main enterprises of Galicia, like retail, landscaping and graphic design.
Students were also shown the different voluntary programmes that are available in Europe and also outside the European continent where they can participate in numerous voluntary programmes in al sorts of fields.
We were also told about the Image, sound and musical staging workshops that the foundation has for young people. These workshop enable many of the participants to then follow on with jobs in different countries.

After the visit we returned to the school with a coffee break and appetizer snacks to conclude the 3rd LTA meeting in Spain.

Later on the evening we had a farewell dinner at a local restaurant, students, teachers host families and many teacher from the school attended.