“On the Move in Europe – Towards a Democratic, Multicultural Europe” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“On the Move in Europe – Towards a Democratic, Multicultural Europe”

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

Our project „On the Move – Towards a Multicultural Democratic Europe“ deals with the challenges arising from the flow of refugees coming to Europe since 2015 and the changes in the European societies coming with them. In 2015 we expected an undefined number of refugee children coming to our schools to get education. From this situation resulted various problems for which we wanted to find solutions during our project. The teachers wanted to compare and compile teaching methods and units to teach children from different countries with very heterogenous educational backgrounds. Besides that we wanted to exchange best practise experiences in personalized and autonomous learning which we collected in a teachers‘ handbook. With our students we wanted to explore the migration movements to and from our countries throughout history up to date as a normal part of human life and to explore the causes and effects on societies. Furthermore we wanted to sensitize our students and school communities for the importance of democracy and its values and to strengthen them against rightist thinking.
The conception of the project began with the combination of schools involved: Italy and Spain as countries with European external borders are especially burdened by the flight routes of the refugees. Our Italian partners agitate against xenophobic tendencies in their region, the Spanish school together with the community of Igualada support the Sahrawi in the Western Sahara for years. Hungary and Romania have different approaches on how to handle the refugee issue. But if we Europeans want to find a solution to the refugee challenge we have to talk about our different points of view. Our partner school in Hungary has students with migration background, our Ro-manian partners are already experienced in teaching the national language as a second language, e.g. to Sinti and Roma children. The Netherlands and Germany are both countries experienced in the integration of people from other countries/cultures. The Dutch partners have „world classes“ and an excellent computer equipment at their school. They try out personalized learning with internally differenciating online school books. Furthermore they have close contact to a refugee camp. In our German classes are many students with a migration background, e.g. from Poland, Russia, Turkey etc. Like the Dutch partners we develop structures for personalized autonomous open learning at our school. The European spirit and the fight against intolerance are the fundamental pillars of our school programme
At our coordinators‘ meeting in Romania in 2016 we worked out the details of our project plan and agreed on the content and structure of the teachers‘ handbook.
Before and during our meeting in Spain in 2017 our students designed project logos, a project hymn, created presentations of their schools/home towns and did research on migration in the past. They created powerpoint presentations or a posterbook about migration to and from their countries, presented them to each other and collected them on a big timeline in a corridor of the school to show their results to the public.
In the Netherlands in November 2017 the students explored the migration background of their families and of their schoolmates, created family trees, compiled their research material in international workshops and created maps to this. Teachers and students visited a refugee camp where they met refugees living there and did some activities together with them.
In Germany in 2018 the students worked on cause studies on flight reasons today and on the reasons for discrimination and their influence on the understanding of democracy in their countries. They focused on the discussions about the current rightist movements and on democratic values. In international creative teams they worked on the European Charta of Human Rights and the defense of democracy and its values.
The last meeting in Italy in 2018 brought together the results of our work during the project. The students put a musical about the fate of refugees on stage and in an exhibition presented their results and insights of the project and a film about their work to their parents and to the public.
All results are published on eTwinning, on our school websites, in the media, on conferences, days of open door, on training events (11.10.2017 in Düsseldorf/13. – 15.05.2018 in Weimar).
Our handbook is published on eTwinning and is at disposal for all schools taking part in eTwinning. The lesson plans will be used at our schools in the future. Teachers and students stay in contact. A follow-up project about our cultural heritages and the influence of the cultural heritage of our migrant is discussed. We have developed lasting exchange projects with our partner schools in Italy and the Netherlands, a project with Spain is planned. The cooperation with local refugee assistance organisations has significally deepened.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 120860 Eur

Project Coordinator

Städtische Realschule Waltrop & Country: DE

Project Partners

• COLEGIUL NATIONAL PEDAGOGIC C. BRATESCU
• Stichting regionale scholengemeenschap (RSG)
• Istituto Istruzione Superiore I.Newton
• Pécsi Apáczai Csere János Általános Iskola,Gimnázium,Kollégium,Alapfokú Müvészeti Iskola
• institut pere vives vich