Human libraries which build a citizenship for a better world Erasmus Project

Project Title

Human libraries which build a citizenship for a better world

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The project relates to various current problems in our institutions and secondary school in general. The learning methods are not always active, and students do not develop the basic skills of the 21st century (communication, co-operation, critical thinking, TIC…). On the other hand, it is difficult to integrate students from different backgrounds or with different learning profiles. Schools are closed off places that are not integrated in the local partnership network or citizens’ initiatives. Finally, teachers are not sufficiently accustomed to working as a team, which slows down educational transformations in schools.
In our project, we are going to provoke our students to meet the diversity of the human in order to prevent them from closing in on prejudices and stereotypes. Our aim is threefold: On one side, we want to reduce discrimination between the youth celebrating the difference and encouraging the dialogue, empathy, tolerance and understanding different towards people from different lifestyles or cultures who, under normal conditions, would not speak to each other. On the other side, make visible the positive actions that people do for the common good, and that our students discover (through personal contacts), people who work specifically in construction of a more inclusive society and school. Finally, we want to go even further: to make our students take action and actively engage in building a better world.
We believe that young people need to “read” a positive account of the personal strengths and solidarity forces that build Europe. We want to promote a culture of peace, human strength and community service.
In our project we will build a virtual library of “Human Libraries”. In this platform, users are able to find many testimonies of exemplary people about their life experiences, such as E-books or book trailers from “Human Libraries” written by students. The first stage will consist of finding large witnesses whom the students will interview. A collaboration will also be established with the libraries of our cities so that they will echo our initiative by proposing meetings with human books at their headquarters.
Each centre will produce an associative map of its local community, reflecting the different existing associations working for the common good. This way, students will become aware of the solidarity mobilisation of citizens, and a positive idea of Europe will grow in their minds. In this map, we will be adding interviews and recordings of sound environments (conversations etc.) in order to configure the “sonorous map” of people who work for a culture of peace.
The students of the classes that participate, following the dynamics and methodology of project learning, will carry out the different activities that will be integrated in the curriculum of the subjects associated with the project: Language classes, Audio-visual, Social, History, Citizenship, Philosophy, ICT, and tutoring.
After preparing this annotated repertoire of human experiences, students will be encouraged to choose an issue that has caught their attention and will have to devise a project that will make it possible to specifically solve a problem in their environment. This will be done using the service-learning methodology, which consists of learning through concrete projects to help the local community.
Students will write letters of motivation to participate in the different mobilities and six students will be selected according to the motivation expressed in their letters and their degree of commitments in the different activities carried out in class. Their knowledge and motivation in learning foreign languages will also be valued. Special attention will be given to the participation of students with special needs and also of pupils from low-income families.
Throughout the mobilities, students will conduct interviews and book trailers, they will know about the different local realities since the issues of social exclusion and the fight against discrimination are not the same in a rural area like Beaumont, the suburbs of Paris or in a city like Sevilla… The great diversity of our centres is necessary for the implementation of our project. Students will need to work in teams, communicate in foreign languages, use ICT tools and improve their social and emotional skills.
In conclusion, with this project, we hope to make our schools as an open space where students can learn the connection within the world around us so that learning is more authentic, motivating and integral. We seek to make our students, responsible and aware adults, multilingual, actors of social transformation and committed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 197496 Eur

Project Coordinator

Athénée Royal de Beaumont & Country: BE

Project Partners

• IES ALAGÓN
• Istituto Tecnico Statale per il settore economico “Raffaele Piria-Ferraris/Da Empoli”
• Lycée polyvalent Louis Armand
• IV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace w Rzeszowie
• IES Murillo