The bear – a symbol of long-term mobilities at high school Gymnázium Jihlava

Gymnázium Jihlava and IES Valle del Arlanza in Lerma (Spain) have been cooperating since 2009. They have been organizing students long-term mobilities each year since 2012. Three Czech students and the Spanish students always exchange their home, family, friends and school for three months. All this with the grants support, that they received from the EU through the nationals agencies.

Spanish students named Darío, Judith and Soraya bought a big teddy bear to their Czech friends and first mentor who shared with them all the joy and suffering of their stay at the end of the first Exchange in December 2012. They dressed him up with a shirt and they wrote different notes on it. The bear spent a while with students but then it was housed in Barbora Voldřichová‘s office who teaches Spanish and coordinates mobilities at Gymnázium Jihlava. The teddy bear received other signed parts of clothes from the new three Spanish girls, Almudena, Lucia and Lydia next year. And this tradition continues until today.

The bear has became a symbol of the long-term mobilities. A lot of Czech and Spanish students that joined this project participated in next projects (Michaela Lacková, Jan Krondráf, Markéta Fuksová, Almudena Parras, David Alonso, Esther Hernández and Selina Marín) is a fact that proves that these mobilities are successful. The long-term mobilities coud not be done without a reliable partner. Barbora Voldřichová from Gymnázium Jihlava and Adolfo Retamero from IES Valle del Arlanza (Lerma) are already an experienced duo and they always managed to sort out all the problems which appeared in the mobilities.

The project with school in Lerma ends in August 2016. The bear will last like the symbol of this project as well as the nice memories of six project years experienced together.

 

Written by Barbora Voldřichová (projects coordinator, Gymnázium Jihlava), translated by Aneta Bočková