Beyond borders Erasmus Project

Project Title

Beyond borders

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Inclusion – equity; Integration of refugees

Project Summary

Our project entitled “Beyond Borders” covered the time period of 1st September 2018 to 28th February 2021.
It enabled us to set up all the activities that we had planned to achieve the goals we had set ourselves in the application form.
Indeed, we had previously noticed that it was necessary to start a new project for our students to be more self-confident, to improve their skills in English as well as in the use of new technologies, and to develop their own idea of a European citizenship. This collaboration was supposed to open up new horizons for our students, most of whom having to face difficulties common among teenagers : getting out of their comfort zone and opening up to the world while daring to speak a foreign language. It was also supposed to enable them to cut off from the monotony of their curriculum.
Damstede Lyceum, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, had posted a request on the e-Twinning platform : they were looking for a French partner school, and we answered favourably. After exchanging a few emails, we soon noticed that we shared the same goals and had the same ambitions for our students. Amsterdam is a city that welcomes many foreigners, Lycée Bouchardon is a school that hosts non-French speaking students, we decided to work on welcoming refugees.
What’s more, it was very enriching for our school to get in contact with another school situated in a highly-populated urban area.
This diversity enabled the students, whatever their country of origin, to become aware of the differences, but above all of the similarities between the young of very distinct countries: after discovering the culture and forgetting the language barrier, they very quickly created bonds: they are European teenagers with the same desires and dreams. On the whole, 78 students and about 10 teachers could get in touch with the partner school, either when hosting foreign groups in their schools, or when sharing the preparatory material for the meetings, and even more people as the schools shared the results with all the students and personnel of their schools, without forgetting the host families who accepted to host a foreign student.
The activities set up in the application form were held in a progressive way. First in class to prepare for the meetings (research work), then in group work during the Learning, Teaching and Training activities (sharing the results of the research and exchanges), the activities enabled to go smooth with our project and to achieve our goals. It is obvious that, apart from the fact of learning how refugees, whether political, religious, or climatic, are welcomed and considered in a foreign country, the meetings were essential and shaped the minds of all the participants towards a better self- and other people acceptance, towards more acceptance of the difference and towards more inclusion. Not only was our objective of improving language skills greatly achieved (in English for the French, in French for the Dutch), but our goal of more open-mindedness among our students was even more greatly reached. Their stereotypes and prejudice soon disappeared during the different Learning, Teaching and Training activities.
As for the teachers, the meetings were also the occasions to exchange their good practices, a useful thing to improve their working skills.
We have been able to organize 4 Learning, Teaching and Training activities : 2 in France and 2 in the Netherlands. Thanks to the grant given to each organization, we have been able to organize more student mobilities than planned in the application form : 78 instead of 58, which made the exchanges even more interesting.
Because of the sanitary situation, we were agreed a postponement of the project ending date (until 28th February 2021), but the pandemic never permitted us to be better organized to make the most of it; the schools working in a hybrid way, it was difficult to mobilize new students to give a follow-up to the project. But it is not excluded that we may make an e-Twinning project if the situation gets better, in which case we would have all our students in class and we could work more efficiently, and if we have other teachers enrolled in the project, the results would be richer.
Students and teachers benefited from a partnership which was rich in meetings and friendship. They could discover what the “real life” of a refugee was, the long path these people have to walk through, and it made them more empathic and caring. Let’s hope they will remain so forever.

Project Website

https://immigrantsstory.news.blog/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65634 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lycee General et Technologique Edme Bouchardon & Country: FR

Project Partners

• damstede