The project is actively looking into the current political issues in practice –by students for students! It is mainly carried out by the work of the four partner schools’ students (BG Rein/Austria, KTO/Berlin, Germany, Oulunkylän Yhteiskoulu/Helsinki, Finland and the Liceo Mazzini/Naples, Italy) during the long-term mobilities. The background for the project idea is the current refugee situation in the EU and the powerlessness felt by our students. The aim of the project is to gather background information on the respective legal situation during short-term stays as well as to find out about the approach of the EU to the topic refugees and integration in Brussels/Strasbourg or Luxemburg/Den Haag.During long-term stays at partner schools and in the surroundings of the students’ home schools possibilities of refugee integration should be found and carried out through jointly developed strategies.Furthermore, personal integration with a different culture and society, but also with a strange educational system can be experienced during long-term stays. This in turn will allow the collection of experience, which is then applied positively to refugee integration.In addition, the language aspect should not be neglected at those long- term stays, in which German, English and Italian are regarded as the main languages. Furthermore, the project focusses on the idea that students benefit from their long term stays in a way that they experience how the refugee issue is dealt with in their partner countries and this will result in a mutual transfer of experience with a positive effect.The partner students of Rein, Naples, Berlin and Helsinki have been familiar with each other due to recent projects. When pupils of KTO/Berlin initiated the idea of the project, they got into contact with young people of the respective schools and discussed the issue during an Erasmus+ meeting. The final outcome will include utilizable leaflets for installing and carrying out integrative meetings at schools as well as (digital) portfolios, in which the students’ work is documented. The young people will find suitable means to add to the portfolios with vivid materials (photos, films, interviews).At the end of the project a big closing meeting is planned in Graz/Austria or Brussels/Belgium, where all results will be compared and presented. Reports on the project will be regularly shown on the respective school homepages. The long-term value and consequently a big aim is to make clear to our youth that they not only have the possibility, but also the capacity to help, and that they can positively contribute to opinion formation concerning the issue of refugees. They are directly affected by the importance of honorary jobs in our society and they learn to appreciate the work and efforts of volunteers.
The project was actively looking into the current political issues in practice –by students for students! It was mainly carried out by the work of the four partner schools’ students (BG Rein/Austria, KTO/Berlin, Germany, Oulunkylän Yhteiskoulu/Helsinki, Finland and the Liceo Mazzini/Naples, Italy) during the long-term mobilities. The background for the project idea was the refugee situation in the EU of 2015 as well as the powerlessness felt by our students. The aim of the project was to gather background information during short-term stays in Strasbourg and Luxemburg on the respective political and legal situation according to refuge and migration within the EU as well as to find out about the approach of the EU to the topic integration of refugees. In all partner countries participating schools established contacts to local and regional institutions/NGOs/communities that gave the students an understanding of their work with refugees: Austria - immigration commissioner of the municipality of Gratwein-Straßengel, Caritas, Volkshilfe, Zebra; Germany – Caritas, Volkssolidarität, Diakonie, Evangelisches Jugend- und Fürsorgewerk(EJF), Verein Volunteers; Italy – Cooperativa Sociale- Dedalus, Centro Interculturale Nana; Finland – Diakonissalaitos, Tutuksi During long-term stays at partner schools and in the surroundings of the students’ home schools possibilities of refugee integration were found and carried out through jointly developed strategies. Furthermore, personal integration into a different culture and society as well as into a strange educational system could be experienced during long-term stays. In addition, the language aspect should not be neglected at those long- term stays, in which German, English, Finnish and Italian were regarded as the main languages. Furthermore, the project focused on the idea that students benefit from their long term stays in a way that they experienced how the situation was dealt with in their partner countries and this resulted in a mutual transfer of experiences with a positive effect. The final outcome includes utilizable portfolios as well as a padlet for the integration of refugees with suitable, individual ideas of the students. At the end of the project a big closing meeting took place in Luxemburg where a digital padlet and the portfolios were completed and presented. Activity and media reports on the project will be regularly published on the respective school websites. The long-term value and consequently a big aim was to make clear to our youth that they not only have the possibility, but also the capacity to help , and that they can positively contribute to opinion formation concerning the issue of refugees. They were directly affected by the importance of honorary jobs in our society and they learned to appreciate the work and efforts of volunteers.