Routes to Europe – Escape, Arrival, a New Home? Erasmus Project

Project Title

Routes to Europe – Escape, Arrival, a New Home?

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: Integration of refugees; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The project’s aim was to help young pupils engage with various aspects of the European refugee crisis. It has made the participants become aware of the situation of refugees while simultaneously helping them realize that it is up to Europe to find joint solutions. The project facilitated social inclusion of refugees, giving child refugees the opportunity to get actively involved in the project’s work. At the same time, it has developed the empathetic skills of the participants while confronting them with the realities of war, conflict and expulsion, the consequent resettlement in a foreign country and a new life in an unfamiliar place.
In addition to the strong emphasis put on social inclusion of refugees and migrants, as set forth by the EU Commission, the prevention of marginalisation, intolerance and radicalisation has been given equal weight. The project has enabled the participants to further develop their social and intercultural competence, their grasp of civic responsibility, as well as to develop a deeper understanding of and openness towards social and cultural diversity along with the shared values of the European Union. This project has thus made a major contribution towards combatting discrimination and racism and could be a step towards preventing radicalisation.
Within the framework of three transnational project meetings in all ten children between the ages of 12 and 13 from Spain, the Netherlands and Germany respectively came together. In three stages they were given the opportunity to trace and ‘experience’ the routes refugees take to reach Europe and start a new life. During their stay, the children lived and worked together in multinational teams that exposed them to the challenges of differing codes of conduct and communication in a foreign country. While English remained the project’s language throughout, keen to understand one another the pupils equally employed their Dutch, Spanish and German language skills. A creative approach seemed the most appropriate with regard to the pupils’ age. By means of film, music and graphic art they sought artistic forms of expression to approach the subject matter in a way they could personally relate to while simultaneously exploring different points of view. In Zaragoza the participants started the “journey to Europe” by learning more about the first stage, the so-called “escape” stage. Along with the causes and reasons for escaping they discovered the emotions, fears and threats that commonly go with it. They wrote a screenplay and made a film taking on the role of refugees themselves and trying to give expression to the emotional impact of escape. In Bremen the participants worked on the second stage, “arrival in a foreign country”. They concentrated on their own understanding of “homeland” and considered how and whereby homeland could be experienced and found. They inquired if homeland could have particular characteristics and sounds and collected and recorded these in the surrounding area. This collection of auditory data was then turned into soundscapes. In Bremen they also met with young refugees who shared their and their families’ past experiences, their present life in Bremen and their wishes for the future. They were given the opportunity to talk to one another, putting a human face on the question of “homeland”. The third stage, “a new life, a new home”, was explored by the teams in Nijmegen. Stories of young persons’ flight were told in the form of drawings and lino-cuts, dramaturgically reduced with a focus on a number of key moments.
Within the framework of this project the participants encountered different aspects of the refugee crisis. They came into contact with different attitudes towards and different ways of social inclusion of refugees. This enabled them to analyse their own position and to understand their own perspective as one possible perspective amongst many that could therefore be changed in order to look at the world adopting different points of view. This created a basis for the prevention of violence, for tolerance and the participants’ intercultural understanding whose impact will remain effective beyond the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 74745 Eur

Project Coordinator

Oberschule Lesum & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Stichting Scholengroep Rijk van Nijmegen
• Asociación Cultural del Colegio Alemán