YOUropeans on the move – migrants between integration and tradition Erasmus Project

Project Title

YOUropeans on the move – migrants between integration and tradition

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

“YOUropeans on the move – migrants between integration and tradition” is our project’s title with which we tried to make a contribution to the agenda “Europe 2020” in the context of a three years strategic school partnership. Several problems such as child and youth poverty, youth unemployment, high rates of high school dropouts of children and young persons with a migrational background in particular were mentioned in the agenda which we wanted to talk about and work on. We were and are still totally convinced that only we Europeans can face and solve these problems together and that school can play a special and important role in this context.
That is why we wanted to focus on the topic migration or rather on the outline of migrants’ lives in Europe, who often live between two cultures, between integration and tradition. Together with our school partners we also wanted to work primarily on the question how we could improve supporting and helping children and young persons with a migrational background at our schools to enable them to reach the best possible future and to avoid early school dropouts. In the beginning of the project the participants were supposed to take a stock on the topic migration to work out and reflect the causes and reasons for migration on the one hand and on the other hand they were supposed to examine and reflect migrants’ life situations in their home country and the country they emigrated to. They were also supposed to analyse and question critically the functions of stereotypes and prejudices and work out how these could be reduced to support mutual tolerance. Additionally, the migrants’ cultural identity in their new society and at the same time the new society’s cultural identity was supposed to be examined and critically reflected.
Our strategic school partnership consisted altogether of ten partner schools from different geographic regions in Europe with different economical, historical, political and social backgrounds and with diverse religions or rather confessions and ideologies which offered a huge chance for a lively exchange between the cultures. All schools were secondary schools from the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland and Turkey. For the choice of the partner schools we had searched for countries where migrants came from or went to. We also considered old and new EU member states as well as the candidate for accession, Turkey, as a team member. Further, we searched for schools that were both experienced and inexperienced regarding European school partnerships to both get and find new impulses and to bring in experiences from earlier projects.
For the beginning of the project a planning and kick-off meeting with all involved teachers was planned to clearly define the activities and the products that were supposed to be produced. 10 short-term exchanges of student groups with accompanying teachers to all partners followed over the whole period of three years, which meant having one mobility per quarter. After each project meeting online questionnaires were supposed to check if the planned activities had been done already, if the corresponding project outcomes had been produced and if the planned aims had been reached. Additionally, some short-term further educations for the organizers and long-term exchanges for pupils were planned.
During the three-year project time all involved persons, the students in particular, have prepared and carried out poster and art exhibitions, video presentations, statistical surveys at the partner schools on the topic migration as well as created own literary texts, taken part in music and sports workshops, done talk shows and developed a multicultural calendar and cook book.
Through the intense work with our project topic and its activities we expected and on the whole reached a long-lasting and diverse increase in competence for all persons and organisations being involved. Primarily, intercultural competences were supported and widened through our project for our students in particular, above all a better understanding of the social, linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe, more active social interaction, a better understanding of European values and last but not least a development of a positive attitude towards the European idea. Furthermore, linguistic and intercultural communicative competences, media and computer literacy were extended.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 408037,66 Eur

Project Coordinator

Galilei-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Athénée royal de Ganshoren
• Lycée Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz
• Vicho Grancharov Secondary School
• 9 Gymnasium of Heraklion Crete
• Zespol Szkol w Iwoniczu
• Fulston Manor school
• Liceo linguistico Sophie Magdalena Scholl