Cultural Identity as the Key to the Gate of Tolerance in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cultural Identity as the Key to the Gate of Tolerance 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 : 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: Creativity and culture; Social dialogue; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Our project was created as an effort to realize, explore and develop the shared ideas and feelings of the countries living in a common Europe, to notice the problems and to raise our students’ interest in the situation inside and outside Europe. To awaken their curiosity in discovering new things, to open horizons beyond the borders of the countries in which they live, to restore the feeling of natural pride in their history and culture and at the same time the sense of openness and, above all, natural tolerance to the inaccuracy of other nations and cultures. All seven participating schools agreed on this approach and the ideas of cooperation. The coordinator was the Slovak School (Prievidza), two schools were from Italy (Palermo, Statte), others from Holland (Maassluis), England (Diss), Greece (Serres) and France (Niort). All schools were similar in scope and age-scattered – secondary general education schools. The exception was the Italian School from the State, where pupils were at the age of the 2nd grade of our elementary school, and the French school was not a general but a specialized school for metalworking.
In the project, we have set out several goals that we have successfully accomplished during our work:
– motivation to learn foreign languages, improvement in communication skills and presentation of public works, experience of family life, customs, social, educational habits in countries, improving the understanding of the European situation, problems with the influx of migrants to Europe, various ways of helping migrants to integrate into life in Europe, kids to schools, improvements in ICT technologies, etc.
We can divide the realized project activities into 3 groups:
1.Project Management and Implementation – Each partner school formed the project team of administrators, tutors and students implementing the project, created our own project website, opened and gradually implemented Facebook communication, YouTube pupils’ demonstrations and music-film presentation of activities, Twitter communication, etc., we contributed to the school news, school web sites and yearbooks of individual schools about the activities of the project, we created presentations of pupils’ works in the form of film, theatrical, musical, dance, film performance of the project, we created a series of PPT presentations “Cultural identity and its importance in today’s Europe”, we have prepared a background for methodological advice to use these presentations in individual subjects at our partner schools, we conducted ongoing discussions and social networking assessments before and after. We have prepared continuous work schedules and surveys of the implemented activities at the international meeting. We have always distributed these to all our partners. In the near term of the project, we focused on the archiving of all project products, photographic documentation and preparation of the final catalog. We have realized the logo, the poster and the final exhibition and presentation of the works.
2.Transnational Project Meetings – we mainly used methods of interviews, discussions, practical demonstrations, we discussed various methodological practices, different school systems and the organization of school work.
3. Learning/Teaching/Training Activities – here we mostly used methods of visual presentation of student works, follow-up interviews, … In the case of artistic performances – there were workshops focused on the subject and artistic field where the pupils realized. Through the direct results of the students’ work, the PPT presentations were always presented at the home school and also at international meetings. The themes were based on these basic areas:
– Diversity of culture in Slovakia (Italy, Greece, England, the Netherlands, France) – Each partner country presented their specific surroundings.
– Prejudices and stereotypes as we know them.
– Are we able to respect and support various cultural background in our surroundings
– In what we are alike
– Integration Yes? Or No?
– What will be our common Europe?
Last but not least, the joint project catalog in the form of a brochure
– Video (student films, music videos, theatrical and stage presentation)
The impact of the project was visible at several levels: from local, regional to international. The most important thing is to involve parents in project activities, opportunities for developing contacts and other projects, improving cooperation between schools and other institutions, promoting a positive image of the school, introducing innovative pedagogical methods, inspiring pupils to learn foreign languages and learning to communicate internationally, the benefits of Europass in seeking better work on the European labor market, developing strong potential and interest in cultural identity in our home countries, preventing genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia around the world, fostering peaceful coexistence between diversity

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 139425 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnázium Vavrinca Benedikta Nedozerského, Matice slovenskej 16, Prievidza & Country: SK

Project Partners

• Lentiz | Reviuslycum
• Lycée Paul Guérin
• Liceo Scientifico Statale Benedetto Croce
• Istituto Comprensivo Giovanni XXIII
• ARISTOTELIO EKPEDEFTIRIO SERRON
• Diss High School