Our project intends to improve social inclusion structures and democratic practices at our schools in order to tackle the challenge of the refugee crisis directly where it concerns us: in the integration of newly arrived refugee children to our schools.We are 5 partner schools in the project, from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Greece. All countries involved are directly concerned by the refugee problem as refugees are not only passing through but staying on. All schools are expecting refugee children to join them in the near future or do already have refugee children at their school, have experiences in the field of shaping their school environment and share the interest of improving their structures towards a welcome culture for refugee children.In our activities we want to look at the existing social structures favorable to inclusion at our schools (different cooperation structures like students' representative systems, mentoring systems, partner learning etc.), exchange experiences and existing good practice about them and extend them to a welcoming environment for refugee children by on the one hand taking their needs into account, on the other hand communicating them our fundamental values and how our societies operate.The subtopics involved will include such as historical and current aspects of migration, needs and requirements of the refugee children, studies on values/rules and obligations of the European societies, inclusive activities, improvement of school structures, fostering of democratic practices and, at the end of the project, providing materials for teaching/training activities to be used by a larger public for the instruction of refugee children.The topics will be dealt with in different ways: we will have international discussion forums and round tables as well as expert conferences and practical teaching/training activities during our meetings, we will visit places where refugees stay and have debates with refugee help organisations, we will have cross curricular studies and prepare documents and presentations inbetween the meetings, we will write and publish a handbook (online and paperback version) with all the relevant information for refugees' inclusion at our schools, a sample of a school agreement adjusting the school community's life and a choice of already established teaching material including methodological hints for its use with refugee children which will be extended and completed over the following years.The impact envisaged is to have our schools ready prepared for receiving refugee children but also to have improved cooperation structures for the whole school community. We want to share these experiences with other schools, directly with our neighbouring schools by inviting them to some project activities and with others through the material we provide via internet, but we also want to share the experiences with other institutions from outside school such as the local government, NGOs and refugee concerned organisations and thereby build a network of different stakeholders.The cooperation with other schools will also include consultation on individual refugee student cases in order to give them a suitable school career orientation.Education and integration start at school and with young people. The potential long term benefits of the project should be a better because well thought of and well organised inclusion of refugees to our schools and thereby to our societies and a fostering of democratic thinking and practices which can contribute to prevent radicalisation tendences and promote a functioning multicultural society, inside and outside school.
Our project intended to tackle the challenge of the refugee crisis directly where it concerns us: in the integration of newly arrived refugee children or migrants to our schools. To attein this objective we wanted to improve the inclusive structures at the schools involved in order to reach a higher level of well-being within the school community and especially for young refugees or migrants newly arriving in the countries and at our schools. It aimed at preventing discrimination, improving democratic practices, fostering communication and cooperation processes at our schools and at developping emphathy with and motivation to practically assist young refugees/migrants in and outside the schools. It also aimed at promoting intercultural, language and IT competences. After the dropout of one partner we were finally four schools in the project, from Belgium, Germany, Italy and Greece. All schools were more or less directly concerned by the arrival of young refugees/migrants in their cities and at their schools. The students involved were 16-18 years old, they came from general or vocational orientation. Teachers came from different school departments and had different qualifications to guide or accompany the work. which was done mostely through cross curricular studies. During our project meetings we had lectures, round tables, group work, presentations, expert conferences and practical exercises. We developped common agreements, rules for school life and practical hints for helping refugees/migrants within the school life. We played inclusive games, had arts, music and sports activities and practised cooking together. All these activities were done involving refugee or migrant youngsters whereever it was possible. We visited hotspots, centres for unaccompanied minors and other refugee accomodations, cooperated with NGOs and other help or rescue organisations and created links to political, social or administrative authorities in our towns. Besides many smaller documents like flyers, posters or booklets our big final product is a 180 pages strong handbook showing the work we did during the two years of our project and providing all kind of materials concerning the historical aspect of migration but also the practical work to be done. It should help other institutions find practical answers to the question how to integrate young refugees or migrants. The impacts of our project are noumerous, as our final evaluation showed. Next to a growth in general skills and competences for both students and teachers, as we expect on this kind of international projects, the most important and perhaps most difficult aims to reach are the awareness of the importance of acceptance of all, of solidarity and of democratic thinking and the importance of fighting against racism and discrimination. Throughout the whole project, we gave ‘the refugees’ a name, a face and a voice. The impact of all the activities concerning refugees, the growth towards mutual understanding and acceptance of all was clearly noticeable. The impact on the overall wellbeing of the young people involved in the project is one of the most striking outcomes. Equally important are the lessons learned for future projects and for future school life. All partners will select some good practices learned from the others and evaluate to what extent they can be useful for their own school and look for methods to make more school participants benefit from the results in the future. Given the search for improvement, the exchange of good practices e.g. on democratic and inclusive structures in each partner school, the exchange of experiences on the way refugees are welcomed and guided at school, and the reinforcement of the cooperation with other stakeholders and other schools, the project has an impact on every partner school. The search for improving the existing structures and measures will continue. In addition the attempts to implement certain topics and activities into the school curricula will go on after the project. For all contents and information of the project and for consulting our final product - the Handbook - please follow the links: http://prointegrate.wixsite.com/plus http://prointegrate.wixsite.com/plus/dissemination Because of the drop out of the Swedish school the learning, teaching, training activities had to be reorganized as dates and some contents changed. They have been renamed in the way shown underneath, following the chronological order of the meetings. The number of participants getting EU financial support for travel and individual support remained exactely the same as officially granted. C1 Learning, teaching, training activity to Avola, Italy C2 Learning, teaching, training activity to Thessaloniki, Greece, first mobility C3 Learning, teaching, training activity to Kenzingen, Germany C4 Learning, teaching, training activity to Thessaloniki, Greece, second mobility C5 Learning, teaching, training activity to Dendermonde, Belgium