We are all migrants of this world Erasmus Project

Project Title

We are all migrants of this world

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Free as Europeans may feel to choose where they want to live and develop their professional carriers, some of them still seem to show little enthusiasm to fully accept immigrants’ right to be part of the society with all their privileges and obligations. Due to little awareness and an increasingly multicultural society, people’s attitudes towards the phenomenon of migration are constantly changing. Bearing in mind the current political and economic situation, members of the European Union are more and more commonly said not to understand each other in terms of similarities and differences. The idea of our project was therefore to make its participants and all the potential stakeholders be aware of what challenges they have to face and find effective solutions to deal with the issue of migration. Only by knowing and understanding the basis of the issue can one deal successfully with this hotly disputed phenomenon nowadays as well as contribute to staying part of united Europe. Without knowing the historical background, it is not possible to understand the current situation. However, alongside the historical background we also wanted the students to focus on political, sociocultural and economic aspects. Migration is claimed by many to be discussed in national groups, but we felt this was and had always been a matter of a trans-national point of view. Thus, our aim was to provide enough reliable information and make students use the proper tools in order to take an active role and take the right decisions in the future for the benefit of the whole European and wider communities. Hence, the title of our project: ‘We are all migrants of this world’. During the two-year cooperation, students and teachers from Poland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal carried out activities to fully understand, draw conclusions from and take steps to deal with the issue of migrations through reference to: historical background of migration waves, reasons for migration in the past and now, results and implications of migrations, governments’ policies towards migrants, cultural similarities and differences between countries, asylum-seeking procedures. The project helped develop conviction of being a proud and understanding European ready to cooperate, interact and live together in peace. Through this project we managed to encourage dialogue between students of different cultures, beliefs and religions, education, which could make an important and meaningful contribution to sustainable and tolerant societies. While trying to learn more about the migration waves we frequently discovered a low level of reliability of different sources. The information was either missing or given from one angle only. The TV broadcast, media coverage hardly attracted young people’s attention since it mainly concentrated on figures or political matters. What is more, the easiness of the Internet kept pupils away from looking for other sources than Internet posts a lot of which were hardly verifiable. We were able to encourage the students to do innovative proper research and collaborate with peers while using other sources, e.g. by interviewing politicians, officials as well as immigrants themselves. By sharing their findings, we showed pupils the benefits and joy of research. Students engaged in the project were motivated to study the subject in deep as they were prepared to give presentations in front of their schoolmates as well as to publish their findings in stories, summaries and articles. In addition, doing their own research promoted individual thinking. There were three transnational meetings and five short-term exchanges of students. In total 100 students and teachers took a direct part in learning/teaching/training activities during the exchange visits. The results can be seen in a number of products, e.g. five issues of a magazine, presentations, interviews, face-to-face meetings with migrants, project website, debates and a collection of short stories referring to migrations written by students themselves. The students discovered them through their own experience. The innovative method of teaching students developed a better understanding of intercultural relations within Europe and the relations it has with citizens of different countries. We ensured the project website, www.weareallmigrants.eu, with all the materials uploaded on it in a digital form will be widely accessible for at least two years after the official date of closing the project. The Polish school (project coordinator) will be responsible for running the project website after completing the project. To make sure the outcomes are used after the end of EU funding, they have been shared on Twinspace, through teachers’ network, pbworks platform, in the school archive, in school and public libraries, also on http://ec.europa.eu/programme. We will follow similar steps taken in the project with new groups of students coming to school each year, so most activities will be maintained.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117120 Eur

Project Coordinator

Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Piotra Skargi & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Ferreira de Castro – Oliveira de Azeméis
• Liceo Don Lorenzo Milani- Napoli
• 2nd Lyceum of Kos
• IES NUEVO SCALA