Out topic "migration" ranks amongst the most controversially, most hotly debated, most current topics ouf our time and also of the near future. Our students are confronted with it not only by the media, but also by their real life experiences mainly in school, where they have immigrant school mates. Contact with strangers is often connected with fear and shaped by stereotypes and prejudices. It is especially the young people who should be made aware of these processes: they are open and they are the future opinion leaders and the people in responsible positions. School is a THE meeting point to foster awareness. The participating countries all have a different access to the topic: Austria is mainly a transitory country that also hosts a great lot of immigrants, Germany next to Sweden the main aim of the refugees. Italy is the first European country for those fleeing across the Mediterranean (the Lybian route) , but in most cases not the place where they wish to stay. Poland enforces a stricter policy against immigrants which has led to heavy discussions amongst the EU partners. These differences might be discussed in a friendly atmosphere in our school project. This will also be an interesting aspect of our final open discussion. Our different partners should guarantee this European surplus value.All regions were poor regions in history once, producing lots of emigrants. This aspect should be integrated in the project via family biographies. But they are also regions where immigration has taken place and was successful. These positive experiences might work as models for the future. The awareness that their ancestors were emigrants once, might change the perspective on the current immigration wave. For this aspect, interviews with all groups, old and new immigrants, will be helpful. In the near future, our contacts in this project may help establish new networks.When we publish these experiences of old and new immi/emigrants, we reach wider circles of our communities, there will be readings at the individual partner schools and communities, respectively.Publishing the results online makes our experiences even more available and this might work as a model for future projects.
Out topic "migration" ranks amongst the most controversially, most hotly debated, most current topics ouf our time and also of the near future. Our students are confronted with it not only by the media, but also by their real life experiences mainly in school, where they have immigrant school mates. Contact with strangers is often connected with fear and shaped by stereotypes and prejudices. It is especially the young people who should be made aware of these processes: they are open and they are the future opinion leaders and the people in responsible positions. School is THE meeting point to foster awareness. The participating countries all have a different access to the topic: Austria is mainly a transitory country that also hosts a great lot of immigrants, Germany next to Sweden the main aim of the refugees. Italy is the first European country for those fleeing across the Mediterranean (the Lybian route) , but in most cases not the place where they wish to stay. Poland enforces a stricter policy against immigrants which has led to heavy discussions amongst the EU partners. These differences have been discussed in a friendly atmosphere in our school project. Our final open discussion was mainly about practical problems here and now in Austria. But they are also regions where immigration has taken place and was successful. These positive experiences might work as models for the future. The awareness that their ancestors were emigrants once, might change the perspective on the current immigration wave. This aspect was integrated in the project via family biographies. For this aspect, interviews with all groups, old and new immigrants, were helpful. In the near future, our contacts in this project may help establish new networks. After having published our experiences of old and new immi/emigrants, we hope to reach wider circles of our communities. Publishing the results online makes our experiences even more available and this might work as a model for future projects.