HE.ST.I.A. Helping Students In Acceptance Erasmus Project

Project Title

HE.ST.I.A. Helping Students In Acceptance

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Integration of refugees; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

The HESTIA project was created out of the need to build an inclusive atmosphere in our schools for all children. We wanted to train our teachers on how to deal with pupils having a migrant background and teach our pupils the values of empathy, tolerance and acceptance towards the others. Some of the partner schools already had a background on emotional intelligence projects; some others had already dealt with inclusion issues due to necessity. The Maastricht University Graduate School of Governance was the ideal partner to train the partner schools on migration and inclusive education.

The objectives we set for this project were:
-to provide a preparation to the partner schools in order to respond to migrant pupils inclusion
-to raise awareness of the challenges faced by immigrants and refugees, and
-to contribute to the development of policy and good practice exchange regarding inclusion of the migrant population.

Apart from Maastricht University, the partnership consisted of 3 primary schools in Greece (6th Primary School of Egaleo-Athens, which was the coordinating school), Spain (Maristes Sants Les Corts Fundació Champagnat-Barcelona) and Belgium (GO! Basisschool Schaarbeek Hendrik Conscience-Brussels), 1 kindergarten-primary school in Portugal (Jardim-Escola João de Deus-Leiria), 1 primary-secondary school in Italy (Istituto Comprensivo Statale “Gianni Rodari”-Palagiano), who implemented the project activities in all educational levels. 40 pupils of the higher primary grades participated in the 3 pupil exchanges and 14 school teachers and head teachers in the short-term staff training program in Maastricht.

Our work focused on the following themes: human rights, defining migration, migration stories, inclusive exchanges in culture and sports. The partner schools implemented 56 educational activities in class, 5 of which involved collaborative work among the schools. A survey was carried out in the beginning of the project and was repeated near its end, in order to record the attitudes and perceptions of teachers, pupils and their parents towards migration, and measure if there was any clear change that could be attributed to the project work. Also, our partnership created a set of proposals for inclusive education (project manifesto), which was delivered to the educational authorities at the local level in each partner country, and to a representative of the European Commissioner of Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, during the meeting in Brussels. The HESTIA description of activities and outcomes are uploaded on the Twinspace platform (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/44331/pages/page/269036); photographs and dissemination materials can be found on the project website (https://kavafisschool.wixsite.com/hestia).

Trying to assess the project outcomes, we believe that HESTIA had a strong impact on the school communities as a whole. At every partner school, it is noticed that everyone is more aware about Human and Children’s Rights, immigrants and refugees, and also about cultural diversity, behaving with empathy towards migrants and everyone in need. It confirmed the choices of our partnership, whose work was based on the following steps: 1. designing awareness-raising activities, 2. providing information about migration to learners, 3. developing empathy among the participants, and 4. resulting in learning. And even though the results of the survey are not conclusive, they are encouraging with regards to the reception and potential of projects like HESTIA. Although the sample was limited, there were a number of indicators from the survey data that suggest a modest change in attitudes and perspectives.

Apart from the impact mentioned above, project work resulted in: the exchange of good practices among education professionals from the partner countries and their empowerment, especially through the teacher training LTTA provided by Maastricht University; the development of the pupils communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and foreign language skills; the networking with local associations and NGOs to open the schools to the local communities; the promotion of our manifesto proposals to the educational authorities in the partner schools areas, in an attempt to change the way our schools deal with migrant pupils.

The longer-term benefits of our project can be summarized at the following points:
1. The school communities have become more receptive and open to all pupils.
2. Local educational authorities will promote our project practices and embody them into more inclusive educational policies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 120830 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ekto dimotiko sholeio Egaleo & Country: EL

Project Partners

• Maristes Sants Les Corts Fundació Champagnat
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO STATALE “GIANNI RODARI”
• UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT
• GO! Basisschool Schaarbeek Hendrik Conscience
• Associação de Jardins Escolas João de Deus