My involvement as a European with refugee children Erasmus Project

Project Title

My involvement as a European with refugee children

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Integration of refugees; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The project “My involvement as a European with refugee children” was jointly contested by four schools from Germany, Greece, Croatia and France. In all four countries schools face the challenge of integrating children from refugee families entering Europe into school life and the local community in search of safety and a better life. In order to create an open and welcoming school culture that defines inclusion as implicit the project aimed to foster and enhance the intercultural competence of students across all grades. Therefore, we conducted four coordinated intercultural training modules with the support of external intercultural trainers over a period of two years. At the end of each training module the participants planned a workshop to pass on the contents of the respective module as intercultural ambassadors to their classmates at the home schools. In the phases between the project meetings the students prepared the workshops and implemented them in several classes of different grade levels supported by their professional teachers. In addition to this, various activities were initiated at each school which further deepened the reflection on one’s own and the other culture and sharpened the pupils’ awareness of the situation of the refugee children in their respective societies.
A separate eTwinning TwinSpace has been set up to support i.a. to present, discuss and evaluate the experiences of the students during the intercultural training and workshops.
Another focus was to announce project activities and content across various public channels, such as local and school media. Along with the project meetings during which the foreign guest students were accommodated in host families resulted a positive and broad impact on family members, friends and thus on the local society. The spread of positive thinking and behavior has led to the promising effect of bringing collective awareness and action in line with European values, growing skepticism towards simple and rapid solutions and encouraging a greater number of members of the community to become cosmopolitan and to adopt a value-based attitude and thus create an open, inclusive and welcoming school culture at the institutions involved. In addition to the students from migrant families, this also benefits guest students and pupils with special needs.
In order to reflect the positive impact of the project activities on school communities in future student generations, the material collected during intercultural trainings and workshops was made available to all teachers to support their future pedagogical work.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 108205 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gotthold-Ephraim-Lessing-Gymnasium Kamenz & Country: DE

Project Partners

• 1o PEIRAMATIKO GEL THESSALONIKIS “MANOLIS ANDRONIKOS”
• Lycée Jean de la Fontaine
• Sumarska i drvodjeljska skola Karlovac