How cultural sport enriches community life and values Erasmus Project

Project Title

How cultural sport enriches community life and values

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Disabilities – special needs; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

This generation of children face so many challenges. Add to this the impact of living in a disadvantaged community and the socio-emotional and educational difficulties that this can entail and we realise how hard it can be for these children to succeed and become successful in their own lives and within the life of their community. People from socioeconomically disadvantaged population groups are less likely to be physically active and more likely to experience adverse health outcomes than those who are less disadvantaged. In today’s video and computer game and television and media culture, our pupils have become more sedentary in their free time. For them education is not seen as a vehicle for opportunity and third level isn’t even a remote possibility.
Through our project we feel that we have an opportunity to tackle many of the issues which ensnare our pupils, namely, early school leaving, poor academic success, social exclusion and lack of community involvement and spirit. There are growing numbers of depressed, anxious, confused and troubled young people. We believe that we as educators can provide strategies to guide our children in making choices that are empowering.

Our role is to provide a safe and healthy environment for our pupils to develop healthy minds and bodies so that they can contribute positively to their own community and the wider world. If children are provided with positive role models they will aim to emulate them thus influencing their own adult lives. We need to ensure that these children can function in this complicated world, but what perhaps is most profound of all and what we have experienced first -hand is that children are likely to live up to what we believe of them. In our school, despite the high percentage of special needs, of marginalised groups, of poverty, of educational disinterest, we believe that our pupils have endless talents and gifts. We need to rally around these children and ensure they can survive and thrive. They need to feel like they are being heard. They must have faith in their own abilities and never give up.

Our school is based in a small town in North Cork. It is set in a pocket of disadvantage around which are spread affluent estates and large farming communities. It often surprises visitors to our school as to how such high levels of disadvantage can be found in such a small catchment area. We realise though, that the levels of disadvantage here are generational and the cycle difficult to break. Though our school community is small, the need is great. The partner schools which have been chosen are all very individual and different to ours. We want our pupils to realise that there are endless possibilities out there for them and to allow them to see the values on which these schools and their communities rest.

What we have come to understand is that geography does not make a community. A community is a group of people associated with one another who share some common values. At the root, members of the community assume responsibility for one another. We want our pupils to be integrated into the web of community and buoyed by common purpose. Our school exists within a mosaic of overlapping communities. We feel that through sport we can teach our pupils about their native culture and how it impacts on community life. There is potential for all children to be involved and to realise that sport is about teamwork and pride. The Gaelic Athletic Association, which is a sporting and cultural organisation is the backbone of communities in Ireland and is part of the Irish consciousness. It plays an influential role in promoting community spirit through its clubs. Connection to culture has long been undervalued. Children who have access to quality education and are included in their communities have a chance at making better decisions and choosing a life worth living. When we encourage children to take part in sport, teach them the necessary skills and introduce them to their local clubs we begin to close the progress gap and ensure positive outcomes. Through our cultural organisations our pupils will meet high-quality leaders within their own areas and one day may themselves become leaders within their own communities, in turn helping other young people and breaking the cycle of disadvantage.

We view our Erasmus project as an intervention to break down the barriers of socio-economic disadvantage. There are so many possibilities open to the children of today but we need to teach them to be resilient. Firstly we must ensure that they are aware that all members of society have so much to offer and that for our communities to grow and flourish all its members must be included and have a role to play. We must purposefully cultivate minds that work to improve the welfare of all citizens of the world. We aim to enrich the lives of the children within our school and through them their community. We dream, we visualise, we plan and we will succeed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 130050 Eur

Project Coordinator

St. Joseph’s National School & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Colegio Pureza de María
• IC TORREGROTTA
• Osnovna skola Blaz Tadijanovic