Crossing borders: migration and hospitality in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Crossing borders: migration and hospitality in Europe

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Inclusion – equity; Integration of refugees

Project Summary

Migration has existed from the beginning of the mankind. The origin of primitive man is supposed to trace back to Africa. Migrations led men to come to Europe, and those original men were our ancestors. They were our mould, what we are now is the result of those migrations and the mix of cultures.

Every day we can hear some news of people trying to reach Europe, escaping from wars or trying to find work and a stable living; they’re immigrants. Recent financial crisis made people leave their home country and try to find work somewhere else; they are emigrants.
All of them migrate, having different reasons, different ways of traveling and with different routes and destinations.

What do we really know about migration? Are our students aware of everything that is related to migration?
Our schools have a common feeling that we must help our students to get aware of migration. Help them to understand why they should support and assist those people migrating, and probably suffering, trying to reach their destinations and set up a new home.
We are starting an ambitious 24-month project where we would like to work on four main topics of migration. Each country will lead one of them and suggest activities for that week. 30 students from each country will be involved, a group of 10 students will travel to each destination.
We believe that the most suitable division of the four topics among the countries is: Origin (Spain), Transit and Gateways (Italy), Migrants Reception (Finland) and Integration (Germany).

During Origins we will learn a bit of history, try to understand where we come from, and the countries that currently are migrating to/from Europe.
During Transit we will analyse how people travel, look at costs, dangers, transit countries, etc.
During Migrants Reception we will deal with what people face when arriving at their destination, rights & duties, asylum, underage migrants, etc.
Finally, during Integration we will handle jobs, cultures, families, discrimination, facilities & barriers, cultural enrichment, etc.

During the mobilities students will participate in workshops, survey-result sharing, debates; they will visit local NGOs, charities, talk to experts on local immigration and integration policy. They will discover the cultural variety of each hosting country and learn about the history and roots while focusing on what we have in common rather than what divides us. We have also planned role play activities to make our students understand the recent immigrant stories and “walk in their shoes”. The choice of the activities pursues a common objective of getting to know, understand and integrate people from different countries. We feel that the best way to promote the values of non-discrimination and integration, is to give our community the opportunity to gain knowledge on immigration as well as real experience, and thus avoid prejudicial treatment and encourage a sympathetic awareness and inclusion of different people as part of your society.

Having four different countries on the project will enable us to get a much more varied and objective view on immigration than we could possibly get in local environment. All the data gathered by the four teams will be constantly contrasted. We are looking forward to learning from each other, not only in respect of European programme and its management, but we also hope to know first-hand experience from regions which have taken in recently many immigrants (Fulda, Germany) or schools with study module on multiculturalism and global issues, as well as special programmes for underage refugees and immigrant families (Alppilan, Finland), among others.

We hope for a greater lasting impact on our communities. Apart from obvious linguistic benefits and raising social awareness, one of the main objectives is the creation of material and a didactical tool kit on the general topic of migration in Europe.

Another great objective is to make our students take action, to get involved in volunteering programmes for immigrants in our neighbourhoods, work placement with social organizations, workshops with immigrants, etc. To ensure this objective, we will try to make the best of the already existing initiatives (school web, school volunteering programmes, open days, local fairs, etc.). There will be a constant communication among the partners, brainstorming, feedback and evaluation. We have planned regular online and face to face meetings before, during and after the mobilities.

All the information will be shared at school level, furthermore, material and results will be published in our school websites, eTwinning platform, and social media. We will share our experience with the local community though newspaper articles, local TV and fairs.

This project will create new networks among our schools and widen our horizons. In short, taking part into this project will be a life experience, not only a learning one for the whole community involved in the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 130704 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ntra Sra del Pilar & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Marianum staatlich anerkannte Realschule und staatlich anerkannte gymnasiale Oberstufe
• Alppilan lukio
• Procura Generalizia dell Istituto della Società di Maria