EDGE (Equality, Diversity, Gender, Education) Erasmus Project

Project Title

EDGE (Equality, Diversity, Gender, Education)

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: Inclusion – equity; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

“EDGE” (Equality, Diversity, Gender, Education) was a three-year project designed to enable participants to become more conscious about equal opportunities, diversity, discrimination of minorities, unemployment, human rights and gender issues by working on various project activities and preserving traditions, historical and cultural heritage through mobilities. Our group of 5 schools represented European diversity – from rural to urban; from north to south, east to west, former Eastern bloc and developed West; schools with different economic, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. We worked together to set up a vision for future education and employment needs, sharing the ambitions and aspirations of our students and working to prepare for a future in which life-long learning is a central element. This project brought together a wide range of students, teachers, families and local people from participating countries during the mobilities and project activities. Teachers from different disciplines (Foreign Languages, Art, History, Geography, Civics, ICT, Religion and Ethics, Literature) and students worked collaboratively to study the topics defined and trained the participants on preserving cultural heritage, improving desired basic personal skills e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, research skills and practices, oral and written communication using discussion, survey, brainstorming, collaborative group work. The project was divided into several stages starting with the introduction of the teams, partner schools, towns, regions and countries, learning about different languages, traditions and cultural heritage of each partner. Then we focused on the topics of equality, gender issues, role of women now and in the past, discrimination and bullying by working on shared presentations, documents, comics and videos.

This was a cross-curricular project working collaboratively to promote intercultural education, to increase the foreign languages learning, the linguistic diversity and to improve the collaborative work, to raise awareness among pupils and other members of the society towards becoming more conscious citizens without any prejudices as this project also aimed at building cultural awareness to help us cross barriers and learn to accept different values and cultures. The broad scope of our project enabled all pupils including those from different ethnic, economic and social backgrounds, to participate in an active and creative way. We wanted to combine raising awareness of European citizenship and cultural heritage with an ideal for preserving our traditional folk crafts and arts for the next generations while focusing on preparing ourselves for a future in which technological and linguistics skills will be essential tools. Furthermore, the project stimulated the capacity for teamwork and self-organized learning through encouraging working groups and workshops. The students gathered information, evaluated it, and integrated it into the project. These are the skills which will be useful in many contexts and are also basic principles of lifelong learning. In this way we increased respect and tolerance towards all kinds of diversities. Students realized their own qualities and learned to empathize, improved problem-solving skills and prevented the possible conflicts, found remedial solutions for major obstacles in communication. Participants got to know their own qualities and could find solutions for big problems and developed and applied personal and corrective studying techniques and increased their academic success at their schools so that they could choose jobs suitable for them.

The outcomes or final products such as presentations, videos, working with social media tools improved ICT skills. For every activity a lesson plan was prepared in each partner school for each 2-3 month activity period, outcomes were seen through presentations (PowerPoint, Word, pdf, video, conference) + shared on Twinspace and social media. Newsletters and questionnaires were published following each mobility. This was in addition to local dissemination through school newsletters, school websites + communication through assemblies and local press/radio/TV. At the end of the project we can say that thanks to the project activities and outcomes the students, teachers, parents, local people and authorities, raised their awareness to the importance of equal opportunities regardless of gender, age, religion, orientation or beliefs, they learned about new traditions, history and cultures through first hand experience in mobilities. Pupils were more interested in reading and writing not only in English but also in their own language or dialect, keeping it for the future beyond the limits of this project. We are sure that the friendships started during the project among the participants will last forever because we have such experience from previous projects.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/70805/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 130392,49 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnazium, Havirov-Mesto, Komenskeho 2, prispevkova organizace & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im.Stefana Zeromskiego
• Colegiul Tehnic Mihai Bacescu
• INSTITUTO DE ENSEÑANZA SECUNDARIA JUAN DE MAIRENA
• Gymnázium Viliama Paulinyho-Tótha