OPTIBEST

Organisation and country where the good practice has been implemented: ENSINUS/INETE

Title: OPTIBEST

Main Theme/Area of intervention: Social Inclusion

Main objectives: Enhance professional skills in real context; promote a visual health service to people with economical needs.

Target groups addressed: Students and teachers created the project, set up the opticians store and contacted social organizations to provide the service to people external to school or students with economical needs.

Main activities necessary for its realisation: First the project was prepared and submitted to the entrepreneurship contest Acredita Portugal. Besides creating a social inclusion business, we also created a network of partners, including companies in the field of optics and social organizations which provide our ‘clients’. We created both an enterprise which provides all visual services and a classroom where students learn by doing. We also collected second-hand glasses and have the lenses donated by well known brands (Essilor, Hoya, Shamir).

Results achieved: About forty students, 3 teachers and around 15 beneficiaries of the service.

Innovation: An innovative way of work based learning, and a means of developing social awareness in students. School also became closer to the surrounding community.

Transferability: Not applicable.

Impact: Organization + local