Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day to avoid bullying. Physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, remains constant.The project consists of innovative activities in education, awareness and training addressed to children, educators - teachers, parents and professionals of the private and public sector, in a consolidated effort to tackle bullying and set up stronger antibullying activities. The activities are 1) Video: Objective: in cooperation with our partners we will produce the necessary tools combining entertainment and education, pleasure and education to address early school leaving as well as social exclusion. Production of a video presenting a bullying story containing antibullying reaction from the victim, using the traditional shadow theater heroes of Karagkiozis, Veligkekas, and Kollitiria. Its purpose is to aware, inform and educate on bullying and antibullying activities combining modern with traditional, putting in evidence values and attitudes, an international effort.2) Teachers' training of primary and secondary schools, at school, for information / education and awareness. Development of training methodology, on terms of children's rights, social values, influences. Condition: collaboration with partners specialists which will be educated from specialized staff on the training curriculum, insuring sustainability and viability. Production of a training methodology. 3) Manual on bullying and antibullying activities: Objective: To gather facts, knowledge and instructions for teachers concerning bullying and antibullying activities. It will be provided to all trained teachers describing and deeply analyzing the activities to be undertaken for anti bullying activities and awareness. Use: From teachers after the end of their training to educate children, teens, parents. 4) e-tool, video game: production of an e-game using shadow heroes, containing different levels of difficulty as learning tool for values of self respect, and respect for others, personal integrity, violence, children rights, Family, friends and society as key influences on a young person. 5) Training for trainers based on manual and training methodology. The target group is members of all partner organizations, or specialists cooperating with them (5 per partner organization). 7) Webinar to train professionals from the public sector, schools repsonsibles, social workers on a range of topics related to improving skills and knowledge on bullying and antibullying activities. The project is structured so that results directly benefit to three target groups :1. The final users: children and teachers. Teachers will be directly involved in the project activities through training and education in interactive way and children will be able to learn through playing and explore their personal capacities. During the project is expected have a participation of minimum of 240 people in each country, teachers, and professionals and another 200 parents, at least. 2. School responsibles and experts in the educational sector: social workers, educational institutions, psychologists also participating in the production of outputs, surveys, and the elaboration of results, factors of failure/risks/assumptions, consultants and supporting staff from all partners. Expected to train, minimum 60 people in each country. 3. Partner organisations and cooperating stakeholders, at local , regional and national level: It is expected to reach at least 50 bodies , both from the participating countries and other countries of Europe.Achievement of objectives: through the development, of ICT products, development of training curriculum based for teachers and trainers, use of webinars to achieve a wider public, train the trainers for enhancing viability, targeting partners' specialized staff / professionals wishing to develop new skills that enable them to respond more adequate to modern social and educational requirements in Europe.Activities: work shops, dissemination, evaluation, impact assessment, and testing courses under which participants will use all products during preparation phase, under the guidance of experienced experts. Existing surveys and partners' experience will be the basis for the initiation of projects outputs tackling bullying and setting preventive antibullying methodologies aiming to contribute to the reduction of school drop out . Children and teachers face and cope with real challenges in an educational environment under continuous transformation, on which knowledge, skills and effectiveness are contested due to the increased necessity of communication between children, parents and professionals, for new innovative products to sustain a further evolution of existing methodologies. Products of children's interest help to reconsider and reexamine values, principles and behaviors.
The PREPEI project (Protecting Enhancing Participating Educating Informing) addressed the issues of learning and informing the entire school community in relation to the importance of bullying as a factor of school dropout by providing them innovative tools. The project is particularly relevant for 2 out of the 8 key competences for lifelong learning highlighted in the EU policy documents: Personal, social and learning, and Cultural awareness and expression (Key competences for lifelong learning – Factsheet 2017). The question of interest for the project is: How to recognize and respond early and effectively to behaviors that can lead to bullying and school drop out through information, awareness raising and training as first and essential steps that must be done to cope with this pan- European problem. The project aimed to prepare school community of taking more responsibility in managing early school leaving and bullying. Objectives: 1. The overall objective of the project was to create, test and implement an innovative educative and informative program for sensitization of school communities and prevention of school violence and bullying in order to reduce the school dropout. 2. Development of an innovative toolbox to support the overall first objective, to help train and inform school community through the implementation of six Intellectual Outputs, (IO 1 – Video, IO 2 - Teachers Training module, IO 3 - Manuals for Teachers & Educators, IO 4 – Video Game, IO 5 – Communication Platform, IO 6 – Webinar, IO 7 - Train the trainer course). Namely, the concrete tools that have been developed are: - Video game using shadow theatre heroes, - Video using the traditional shadow theatre heroes, - Training manual with guidelines how to use the video, - Webinars dealing with violence among students, All the above tools are user friendly for educators that are interested to coordinate the training and develop skills in managing bullying by providing information, ready to use materials and a step-by-step description of the procedure. The consortium consisted of 6 partners from 5 countries, namely: 1. The Smile of the Child (GR) 2. Ellinogermaniki Aggogi S.A. (GR) 3. Asociatia Direct (RO) 4. Baobab Association (SP) 5. Association for equal opportunities SEMPER (MKD) 6. Nadja Centre Foundation (BUG) To reach the objectives, all partners worked together on creating conditions for the implementation and development of a consolidated pedagogical approach respecting the cultural particularities of each country. That has been achieved by developing innovative tools with use of shadow theatre. The rationale of the methodology used was that for each project activity one project partner undertook the role of the task leader, presenting guidelines and support about how the activity should be implemented, and other partners were the participating partners in the activity, pursuing to implement the guidelines in their own context, if that was the case. The project organized three multiplier events in Spain and North Macedonia with 128 participants where all six Intellectual Outputs were presented to a wide audience. Furthermore in all countries, 612 educators participated in piloting activities, 628 educators trained on how to use the tools of the project and through awareness raising activities at schools have been reached more than 4.413 students, 2.756 parents and 567 teachers on the issue of bullying and school drop out. One main result of PREPEI project is the tangible output - a toolbox consisting of videos, teachers training module, manuals for teachers & educators and video game. These products target educators, school leaders, students and different stakeholders in the field of education. The training material contains guidelines, descriptions, theories and evaluation tools (in cases where this was applicable). The outputs are usable and applicable to primary and secondary schools, using all project’s outputs not only separately but also but also in combination. Another important result is the intangible outcome of increased awareness of the participants and other stakeholders getting involved with the project, about how working with the project’s outputs can lead to have multiplied positive effects on educators and students. The consortium believes that the project achieved to disseminate knowledge and practical examples about how to responsibly manage bullying and stimulating thinking and behaviors in all educational settings in order to promote equity and inclusion for special vulnerable groups facing challenges.