EDUCATING COMMUNITY TO REDUCE THE RISK OF CHILDREN’S SOCIAL EXCLUSION Erasmus Project

Project Title

EDUCATING COMMUNITY TO REDUCE THE RISK OF CHILDREN’S SOCIAL EXCLUSION

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

EDUCATING COMMUNITY TO REDUCE THE RISK OF CHILDREN’S SOCIAL EXCLUSION – EDUCOM is a two years Strategic Partnership for school education as opportunity to collect and exchange strategies, methods and activities to support the growth path of 6 – 10 years aged children at risk of social exclusion (minors with emotional, social and economic disadvantages) among 3 schools and the 3 associations and NGOs, that cooperate with schools or work with disadvantaged children, from Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia. The exchange of good practices promoted by the project will consist of practical working tools among professionals in the child education field but also good practices in the joint work with other social actors: the focus of the project will be on the diffusion of the concept and practice of educational communities surrounding schools/institutions for child care as opportunity to face the challenge of empowerment of children at risk of social exclusion.
Children were the age group at the highest risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU in 2017 (24.9 % of children, that means more than 26 million children, were AROPE) – eurostat. Children growing up in poverty and social exclusion are less likely to do well in school, enjoy good health and realize their full potential later in life, when they are at a higher risk of becoming unemployed, poor and socially excluded. It was demonstrated that extracurricular activities help the children to learn, gain knowledge, socialize, strengthen themselves emotionally. Anyway not always schools have the resources (time, expertise, personnel, funds) to bear the burden of this responsibility alone therefore the birth of synergies among different social actors represents a valid support to reduce the risk of children’s social exclusion; usually professional refresher courses are very sectorial or they just give an overview of a general method while EDUCOM wants to promote a transversal learning of concrete know how to be immediately applied to the work context of the partners or to be deepened through the research of local connections in the view of the creation of educational communities.
The core of the project will be the implementation of 5 joint short term staff training events involving 3 participants (teachers, educators, pedagogues, psychologists, experts in expressive therapies, youth workers and managers) per partner where each hosting organization will share their best practices (tools, methods, techniques to support children at risk of social exclusion). Each of them will be followed by an experiential phase where the educators will apply the learned competences in local context of their organizations introducing and testing innovative activities and methods based on the partners know-how for the benefit of at least 40 children at risk of social exclusion per organization. In this way the project activities themselves will guide to the consolidation of a support network among the staff of the involved organization that will reach the climax of its collaboration with the organization of the blended mobility for school learners that will involve 5 disadvantaged children and 2 accompanying persons per organization.
The implementation of the project will be based on a collaborative approach among the partners so each one of them will be responsible of specific actions in order to reach the foreseen results for each project activity. The learning process of the involved educators will be mediated by the participatory learning and peer based learning in the form of exchange of good practices and actual experiences, learning by doing, practical experimentation of the learning outcomes. The process of application and validation of the shared supportive educational methods and tools in child education will allow to create useful and concrete tool-kit and reports that can be easily disseminated and used by other educators from all over Europe and beyond; the project will produce: a guide about the building of educational communities around children with an overview of generalizable good practices from the project and the periodical creation and publication of tools in the form of descriptions and reports. The project will have a strong personal and social impact on the participants in terms of knowledge and know how on the implementation of actions to support children at risk of social exlusion, it will improve the quality of the educational activities and services offered by the partners and it will strengthen their educational communities and cooperation; the project results will represent a concrete support for staff and stakeholders of civil society organizations, schools, municipalities, foundations and institutions. The actual application of the project results in the partner organizations, the concrete planning of follow-up activities and the wide promotion of the concept of educational communities will ensure the sustainability of the project.

Project Website

http://projecteducom.blogspot.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 138955 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASSOCIAZIONE UNIAMOCI ONLUS & Country: IT

Project Partners

• CENTAR ZA POZITIVAN RAZVOJ DECE I OMLADINE
• Scuola elementare – Osnovna sola Dante Alighieri Isola Izola
• Direzione Didattica Statale Francesco Orestano
• UDRUGA PRAKTIKUM – CENTAR ZA DJECUI MLADE
• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DE BARCELOS