Since 2015, migrants have arrived in countries across Europe in higher numbers than virtually ever before. Many migrant children are unoccupied all day long and struggle to find ways to have contacts with the new society in which they have arrived. Even if all the countries face this issue, there are many ways of dealing with it. This is really interesting to discover and to understand the place of migration issue in different political, social and economic contexts. The objectives of the projects are: to integrate around 200 migrants/unschooled children in school activities and in non-formal activities with NGOs and stakeholders. to exchange good practices regarding methods and teaching materials aimed at integrating migrant children in schools activities with parents and the local community. to raise awareness amongst pupils and schools about the migrant issues and European citizenship. To achieve these goals, four schools will gather their strengths. Saint-Joseph Boondael, Brussels, Belgium This school has a pedagogical project based on the IENA approach, known as an “active pedagogy”. It gives a lot of space to cooperation and active learning. Pupils are encouraged to collaborate to learn, work, play and help the school community. Last year, they ran a pilot project aimed at welcoming unschooled children in their after-school activities classes. A group of 25 people linked to the school (headmaster, teachers, educators, parents) want to give an European dimension to this project. That's why they applied as coordinator of this strategic partnership for school education. School Tiberiu Morariu, Salva, Romania have in their school an important percent of children who have parents working abroad. Some of them used to be migrants themselves in different countries in Europe. They come as partner in this project with good practices, methods and tools to integrate new groups of migrants in the European dimension of education. Zespół Szkół, Pobiedziskach, Poland is a school that value multiculturalism and involvement in international projects. They have in their ranks many teachers looking for challenges and an eTwinning ambassador ready to share their experiences with the other schools of this project. Istituto Comprensivo "Barbera", Caccamo, Italy Sicily has been facing many immigration events and problems, which need to be solved at various levels. They built recently a collaboration with a refugee center and that’s why they entered this partnership. These schools will organize 9 project activities. “Information meeting and local dissemination” Parents and stakeholders are invited to attend a meeting where we describe the project. At that point we’ll also write an article for a local newspaper and make a Facebook page of the project. This meeting will occur in the “Democracy Corner”. “Art to meet each other.” Unschooled children will be invited into the schools to meet a migrant artist and to create an exhibition with pupils. “Discovering nature, discovering each other” Partners will host migrant children to have a walk in a green area close to the school. “Immigrants and European citizenship” Each partner will interview pupils, parents, teachers and education stakeholders to make a common movie about experience in other countries, work and integration in society. “Information meeting and local dissemination II” Each partner will organize a meeting for the parents, teachers and education stakeholder to give a follow up of the project and to give information. “Culture for childhood” Migrant children will visit with pupils a museum adapted to their age. “Meet the nursery school” This is a breakfast for young children and parents and then several creative workshops as painting and dancing to music. “Let’s cook together!” Migrants children and pupils will share recipes and cook together. This activity will raise awareness about basic needs such as hygiene and eating. A booklet of the recipes will be shared with the other partners. “Let’s celebrate !” At the end of the programme,there will be a party for all the people who took part in the project. They will also run three transnational meetings for the monitoring and the coordination of the project. They will organize three training sessions where they will share good practices and pedagogical methods. It will be the opportunity for the participants to discover the reality of the partners, living in another country. Our hypothesis is that having contacts with migrant children, the point of view and the attitudes of actors of our education system (teachers, educators, parents, pupils) will change. We will evaluate that with questionnaires and interviews of the regular actors of our schools. On the long term, we think that this project may lead other schools to welcome new citizens and organize activities for them.
The idea of the project raised from some big immigration issues we had to deal with in our country and we felt the need to share this problem with other countries and schools and to see how other countries were facing this big issue and what they were concretely doing in terms of integration. So three schools, that were dealing with immigration issues though from different perspectives and involving different aspects of the immigration and integration question, gathered their strengths. Saint-Joseph Boondael, Brussels, Belgium. This school has a pedagogical project based on the IENA approach, known as an “active pedagogy”. It gives a lot of space to cooperation and active learning. Pupils are encouraged to collaborate to learn, work, play and help the school community. School Tiberiu Morariu, Salva, Romania have in their school an important percent of children who have parents working abroad. Some of them used to be migrants themselves in different countries in Europe. They came as partner in this project with good practices, methods and tools to integrate new groups of migrants in the European dimension of education. Istituto Comprensivo "Barbera", Caccamo, Italy Sicily has been facing many immigration events and problems, which need to be solved at various levels. They built recently a collaboration with a refugee center and that’s why they entered this partnership. These three schools worked to achieve the following project objectives: to integrate around 200 migrants/unschooled children in school activities and in non-formal activities with NGOs and stakeholders, to exchange good practices regarding methods and teaching materials aimed at integrating migrant children in schools activities with parents and the local community and to raise awareness amongst pupils and schools about the migrant issues and European citizenship. To this purpose, the partner schools organized 9 activities. “Information meeting and local dissemination” Parents and stakeholders were invited to attend a meeting where we described the project. We also wrote an article for a local newspaper and made a Facebook page of the project. “Art to meet each other.” Unschooled children were invited into the schools to meet a migrant artist. They created an exhibition with the pupils, made some wall paintings and learned songs together. “Discovering nature, discovering each other” Partners hosted migrant children and together they had a walk in a green area close to the school. Romanian team made a herbarium thanks to the visit of the green area. “Immigrants and European citizenship” Each partner made an interview with pupils, parents, teachers and education stakeholders to make a common movie about experience in other countries, work and integration in society. “Information meeting and local dissemination II” Each partner organized a meeting for the parents, teachers and education stakeholder. They gave a follow up of the project and also gave more information, and answered the questions asked. “Culture for childhood” Migrant children visited with the pupils of the school a museum adapted to their age. “Meet the nursery school” The schools had a breakfast for young children and parents and then several creative workshops as painting and dancing to music. “Let’s cook together!” Migrants children, their parents and the pupils of the school shared recipes and they cooked together.It was also the perfect moment to learn more about geography and show on the map where the migrant children and their parents originally came from. We learned more about the country and their favorite dishes. “Let’s celebrate !” At the end of the program,there was a party for all the people who took part in the project. It was the perfect way to end the project all together. During the project we had three transnational meetings for the monitoring and the coordination of the project. This was a great opportunity to learn more about the project and the activities lived in the other schools. During the project we also organised three training sessions where we shared good practices and pedagogical methods. It was the perfect opportunity for the participants to discover the reality of the partners, living in another country. We learned more about the project bus also we had a look at the school, the activities and the countries and their heritage and we could see how the immigration and integration problems were dealt with in the partners countries and schools, at various levels.