Building bridges between cultures Erasmus Project

Project Title

Building bridges between cultures

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; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

“Building bridges between cultures” was a partnership Erasmus+ K229 of 5 schools from: Denmark, Romania, Spain, Italy and Turkey.
The aim of the project was to promote education for Solidarity as a component of European active civic behaviors through various formal, non-formal and informal activities as: Volunteering activities, International Seminars, Exhibitions, Celebrations, advertising campaigns performed in common by pupils from all the schools in the project, teachers, parents, members of the local authorities and NGOs. The most representative final products of the project were the a e-Book “Europe, land of solidarity” with 5 chapters: “All for one and one for all”, “Mens sana in corpore sano”, “Be a hero saying no to violence”, “United in diversity” and “Mother Nature” made during the exchange of pupils in the 5 countries of the partnership.
Objectives achieved:
1.Increased the European civic competencies of Solidarity motivating students to participate actively in community life, using theoretical knowledge in practice, promoting the inclusion of excluded students with the risk of exclusion, with special needs by helping to promote their integration into the mainstream education and society
2.Increased communication between pupils, teachers through the use of foreign languages and modern means of communication, ICT that improved by working on joint projects and during student exchanges
3. Provided pupils with cultural diversity and democratic knowledge and skills through theoretical and practical education of new cultures so that they would become European citizens
4. Created good learning environment and approaches for supporting pupils’ social and emotional development by transferring good practice examples from different schools in Europe; our students needed to know different cultures and improve their language, to improve their intercultural understanding of democratic values
5.School was connected to community realities and participate in joint actions with NGOs / local authorities.
Target groups
– pupils from 10-15 years old. The project’s activities involved teachers, pupils’ families, NGOs, local authorities and communities members.
Project’s products made in common by the pupils:
– Website, Blog articles, Power Points, movies , 5 magazines, 1 brochure, 1 poster, a Calendar, a flyer, DVDs with materials for the dissemination – all translated in English and the 5 partners’ languages, materials for the International exhibitions, Celebrations and Seminar, etc.
Subjects to address were included in schools’ curricula, as civic education, informatics, foreign languages, ICT, arts, history, science and geography, sports, art crafts, music, dancing class:
– social and civic theme (active participation of the citizens at the community problems, the democratic way to build a common European space based on understanding, tolerance and diversity);
– cultural theme (articles, movies, special events), arts (photos, drawings, flyers, porters).
Activities and methodology
– Curricular and extracurricular activities in school and in the local community;
– There were 5 short-term exchange of groups of pupils – one in each partners’ schools. There were 197 people (157 pupils and 40 teachers) to benefit from this project mobilities;
– We involved teachers, pupils’ families, local authorities and community members in project activities for a better impact and dissemination.
The project’s activities offered a variety of learning methods, from classical to modern, formal, non-formal and informal.
Results and impact
Project’s benefits were recorded on individual, school, partnership’s and local community levels:
– the pupils: communication in foreign languages, directly working with European colleagues developing friendships based on value behaviors. Pupils improved civic, ICT, project management skills (they were involved in all the project’s stages – preparation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, dissemination and follow-up).
– the project’s staff improved their ICT, foreign languages competencies, increased the knowledge of European projects, increased the education on non-formal way; the local community (authorities and NGOs members) played an important role in this partnership and helped the integration of excluded pupils by including them in local community;
Dissemination and Follow-up
We provided long lasting information through Erasmus+ platform for dissemination, Mobility tools, reports, eTwinning platform, project’s Website, Blog and Facebook, DVDs, movies and booklets at school for students and teachers and durable works by the pupils.
We initiated a sustainability plan which involves the dissemination of the project results in at least 20 local schools every year in the 2 years following the end of the project.

Project Website

https://fjordbakkeskolen.aula.dk/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 143398,15 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fjordbakkeskolen & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Atasehir Emlak Konut Secondary School
• CEIP Salamanca
• Istituto Comprensivo Statale Ignazio Buttitta
• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA MARIA ROSETTI