Welcoming Refugees: for a better integration in classrooms Erasmus Project

Project Title

Welcoming Refugees: for a better integration in classrooms

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Inclusion – equity; Integration of refugees

Project Summary

There is no doubt that the European Union has been experiencing an unexpected refugee crisis since 2015.Refugees escaped from Syria,Afghanistan and African countries,most of them minors and even children,are now entering our educational systems.All the countries here represent nations where the number of refugees and immigrants is very high.So we need to enhance our teachers´ methods to welcome all the refugees and the immigrants and provide them with the right educational assistance.We,as teachers,are all qualified and experienced but in the light of this,until now, we have implemented inclusive actions,exclusively thanks to our empathy and our great love of teaching. Indeed the exchange of good practice,given by this project,acquires a huge value.Even more we need to overcome the serious problems with racism and bullying episodes we are continuously having in our schools.So we want our students personally to see what refugees in our different countries have to face to integrate and to be accepted;doing so that our students will develop empathy and understand that we all pertain to one world and that they cannot use the different skin colour or religion as an excuse to humiliate their fellow.So our project is about exploring best practice in these two areas,exchanging teaching methods and developing techniques and tools to help both teachers and students:the presence of refugees and immigrants in the classroom changes the dynamic of the learning environment,because of issues such as language difficulties,past traumatic experiences,bad interaction with other students which causes either bullying or racism episodes.By working together we can find a strong framework to support the structure in the schools to both teachers and students where refugees are present.This project has 6 partner institutes,all with experience in working with minority groups and disdvantaged students.Partners in Italy,Germany and France are very much at the coalface of migrant/refugees crisis,while partners in Ireland,Cyprus and Turkey have great experience in working with minorities,disadvantaged students,mostly refugees.To structurally approach such issues we want to:1)Listen to the needs,concerns,difficultiesencountered and general options of refugees and asylum seekers currently in our institutes.2)examine strategies currently in place in each institute to support refugees integrate successfully into the classroom and progress successfully along the Learning pathway.3)Adopt best practice from each school to stem any form of racism and bullying among young people not just in the classrooms.4)Create new approaches to help refugees to integrate into the European Educational system.5)Disseminate the project learning to as wide an educational audience as possible.To do this we planned to maintain clear our objectives: to empower teachers in managing the multicultural classroom and to abolish racism and bullying so we planned 4 short term student exchanges(4 students and 2 teachers per country),which will have different topics in order to better involve all students together with the hosting refugees, and 2 short term staff training events(2 teachers for each country).The first student exchange will take place in France,where the topic is GAME. Participants will visit a refugee welcoming house and some schools, including the hosting school,where there are classrooms with many refugees.Secondly,there will be the first STAFF training in Ireland where teachers will analyse the questionnaires sent from each country:collect difficulties and start working on some new innovative strategies,here they will also attend a mini course on new methodologies to better handle multicultural classes.The third mobility will be with students in Germany, where the topic is SPORT,here the idea is to share, exchange and compare the different programs which our countries offer to help refugees,also students will be working in mixed national groups on the topic with a special focus on the gender gap.Later in Italy,where the topic is FOOD,participants will overcome any prejudice by following workshops based on traditional food of all countries including the refugees’ present in the hosting school;they will also meet the Lord Mayor who will display guests how Naples has been welcoming minors refugees for years.The 5th mobility:2nd STAFFtraining in Germany centered on the importance of language;participants will get knowlwdge on how the German educational system makes refugees feel closer to the new community by starting learning the national language.Later in Ireland where the topic is MUSIC,students will enjoy playing the instument they like and the music they prefer together,since music has always represented the common language able to join all people in the world.The last topic DRAMA in Turkey, students will have to act in mixed groups,including the hosting refugees, a play thus overcoming any shyness, acquiring more self esteem and confidence in themselves.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 199190 Eur

Project Coordinator

Mathilde-Planck-Schule Lörrach & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Colaiste Eamann Ris
• I.T. Giordani-Striano
• Lykeio Agiou Ioanni
• SEHIT GOKHAN ERTAN MESLEKI VE TEKNIK ANADOLU LISESI
• Lycee Professionnel Paul Heraud