WALKING TOGETHER Erasmus Project

Project Title

WALKING TOGETHER

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: Ethics, religion and philosophy (incl. Inter-religious dialogue); Migrants’ issues; Social dialogue

Project Summary

Named as “Walking Together”, our project involves six institutions from six different countries: PL, TR, PT, ES, IT, and GR.

In the last decade, the number of emigrants has risen up significantly in Europe. With the boom in immigration rates and the constant international mobility of the population the partners described a series of common needs that lead to the decision to implement this project. Violence, bullying, aggression, intolerance, racism, ethnic discrimination against national, ethnic minorities and immigrants are tendencies that can be observed in the attitudes of the students based on the SWOT analysis conducted by each partner in their own school. Consequently, participants from these marginalized groups are likely to alienate themselves in their own communities since they create a disharmony in the society. Through this project, we target social inclusion of students in their own school who have a different ideological and social background.

Apart from this, there are not only minorities or immigrants who are supposed to get integrated into our schools, there are also other handicapped groups such as young students with special needs. The motivational aspect of this project is to enhance their social inclusion, as well. As the activities of our project carry on, we hope to bring people (students, teachers, parents, and people from the neighborhood) with different walks of life together. Therefore, we plan to make these lives aware of such matters. Throughout the project, our learners will also become aware of their own lives, share it with other students from other countries so that their cognition, understanding and tolerance to various lives and traditions will be levelled up. We hope to involve around 150 students from six different countries aged between 9 and 15. The project will last for two years.

The specific objectives are as follows:
* To enhance our students’ national, ethnical and immigrational knowledge.
* To eliminate stereotypes against people from various cultures and improve attitudes of tolerance towards them through questionnaires, conversations, brainstorming activities and visits to partner schools in other countries.
* To raise the awareness of the students in order to overcome some issues such as oppression, economic inequality, sexism, racism, and other challenges through drama events and role-play activities in organized workshops.
* To enhance the knowledge of the students regarding various beliefs and religious organizations so that they can get over with ideological and religious prejudices.
* To give a hand to students so that they can improve their self confidence in their lives and attitudes.

Methodology wise, we would like to utilize project-based learning method through which our learners will improve their deep content knowledge along with critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills.

In order to promote social inclusion and dialogue, we aim to contribute the integration of excluded young pupils by making them responsible in local activities and on Twinspace. We also hope to include them in the traveling activities. During the activities, we expect to improve social connection. In order to accomplish our targets, we will work in a collaborative way. The activities including sports, art, music, games, role-plays, cooking and drama are preferable elements to create a meeting point.

One joint staff training and six short-term exchange of students events will be organized in partnering countries. During these occasions, we will conduct workshops on the topics of Race & Ethnicity, Religions, Immigration, Gender Equality, Bullying & Bias, and Social Classes harmonized by different activities e.g. team sports, children games, theatre, cooking, drawing, and ICT workshops. The targets are improving tolerance towards the different one and social inclusion of marginalized groups.

The outputs of the project are twinspace, questionnaires, presentations, e-story book, logo, brochure and song of the project, and photography exhibition containing team building activities regarding the theme, tips and instructions on ICT tools, eTwinning, videos, photos of traditional children games, lesson plans (especially after the theatre event), banners / slogans against racism or discrimination, leaflets containing our project activities.

The experience teachers gain while holding aforementioned LTT activities will be used in further teaching settings with other groups and the collaborative activities we have completed during our project can be reused in other classes or might even become a part of the concept of social integration the schools have or are going to develop.

Within this project, we hope to help the intercultural dialogue, motivate students so that they can be open to new cultures and provide them a great opportunity to see the importance of meeting with people who represent them to bring about a better mutual understanding.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 164885 Eur

Project Coordinator

Szkola Podstawowa nr 5 im. Janusza Kusocinskiego w Swidniku & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Constância
• İSTANBUL GAZİOSMANPAŞA TOKİ AVRUPA KONUTLARI ORTAOKULU
• 7o Gymnasio Volou
• Liceo Classico Scientifico Euclide