Xenophobia-MMFF is a musical project developed by students and teachers of five prospective partner schools in France, Greece, The Netherlands, Poland and Germany. The main topic is the fear of what is foreign – be it a situation or a human being. At the same time, XMMFF is supposed to illustrate the possibilities of unusual and unexpected encounters in an artistic way. On the one hand, we would like to make people aware of the latent fears of what is foreign. On the other hand, we aim at reducing these fears. The project supports our schools in several ways. It helps preventing early school-leaving and reducing inequity. Additionally, it does not only inform about cultural diversity and intercultural values, but also makes the students experience them. We want to address schools as place of real chances for every participant to verify supposedly foreign and familiar positions and to enjoy school life. Our prior target group are students with special needs. They might face difficulties in the fields of language, cultural otherness and learning or performance impairment. Next to the students with special needs, we would like to foster adolescents with particular talents in music, drama and arts. The activities are carried out mainly by about 250 students aged between 13 and 17 years. We focus on language courses (non native speakers) and artistic-music profil classes. By means of project weeks, international meetings and public concerts at the partner schools and subsequent open discussions, all members of the school communities as well as the local partners will be involved in the project activities. The connection between school recognition, school frustration, and retrospective tendencies, whether into one’s own social network (filter bubble) or behind national borders, while at the same time lacking perspective and self-confidence is obvious. The above-mentioned connection is a problem known to teachers involved in the project. That’s why we decided to make it the starting point for our project. The priorities are diversity and solidarity which run like a code of practice through our project in regard to contents and methods. There will be questions like: What does seem strange to me? When do I feel alien? How do I let someone feel that he/she is a stranger? How do I show confidence? These questions could give the starting impulse for musical/dance/artistic contributions. The collaboration and the development of the stage play is started by competitions at the schools, whereby self made video clips about Xenophobia are submitted. A special collection of these will be taken as first input/elements for the musical production and for further processing. The comparative analysis of the clips will reveal aspects which are essential for the understanding of other cultures and values. How can we communicate with each other and what are the goals for the improvement of the school communities? What can I do to help? What support is needed? During the first year, the following tasks are to be accomplished: the forming of the project and travel ensembles and the collaborative development of a musical leitmotif, which deals with strange elements (by the respective guest musicians). the first joint concerts will be in Greece in spring 2019. Each guest school will make a musical contribution to the hosting ensemble, participate in conferences and present results. The motto of the second year will be migration: What can we learn from each other in terms of integration and inclusion methods in everyday school life, how do we sound together with regard to our musical? The theme of the third project year is distribution and multiplication. A compilation of the best video recordings will be produced during the third year of the project as part of video editing workshops and a film will be made available as a DVD. A webpage documents project activities and results, which are also published in EU project forums. There will be a public talk show after the concert in Poland and an exhibition about mirgation in Europe at each school. They can be carried out in different forms of regular classroom teaching, extracurricular activities, project weeks and semi-annual international meetings. Methods like cooperative and action-orientated learning should constantly be applied throughout the project. Furthermore, cross-curricular learning and teaching will be an integral part of the project. It is also planned to involve school-related persons, social workers, local musicians.
Xenophobia- MMFF was a musical project developed at five partner schools in France, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, and Germany, which dealt with the fear of foreign situations and people and musically demonstrated the chances of unexpected encounters. At the time of application, all schools in Europe were required to review inclusion concepts and integrate young refugees into everyday school life. At the same time the schools were confronted with the fact that too many pupils are leaving the schools before they have reached an appropriate level of schooling. A major concern of the five educational institutions in this project was to highlight and communicate diversity as a strength. The cooperation was about addressing both the fears of an existing group of strangers who are newcomers to an existing society and the fears of strangers who want to arrive in an unknown society, while at the same time taking a calming and encouraging approach. The aims were: - to raise awareness of the issue of xenophobia through the development and performance of a musical entitled "Xenophobia", - the integration of pupils with and without migration background, with special difficulties and special talents in the field of music and art, - to use these funds to counteract early school leaving. - In this sense, the aim was also to review and introduce inclusion measures in our schools. Through the announcement of a student competition at all partner schools on the topic of xenophobia, as well as through project weeks, about 2000 young people were confronted with the topic at school. The response in the areas of art, dance and video performance, music and text was very high and the interest in the project activities increased continuously. There were learning groups at all schools that have been working intensively on the topic over the last three years. It was incorporated into school subjects and integrated into the existing curriculum. There were Erasmus-AGs that researched, discussed, and formulated statements. The working groups Intercultural Dialogue and Musical will continue to shape everyday school life in the schools. The highlights of the hard work were the international activities. An average of five to six students and two to three teachers each travelled from four schools to visite the fifth. The pupils of the travelling ensembles had attracted attention as talents in the competitions and/or had special knowledge and skills regarding migration, flight, and expulsion.The guest teachers supported the host school by leading workshops on site, working together on compositions, supervising individual students and coordinating activities. The week-long international meetings began with an exhibition of the interim results, followed by four rehearsal days with various workshops. At the end of the week there was a public performance in English with all participants. The success of the project was demonstrated by the example of young people who were confronted with prejudices at their schools. As participants in the project, they learned about the culture and history of the countries they visited, but also about their own family backgrounds. They learned to proof and break through prejudices and stereotypes. They showed themselves to be more self-confident in a responsible manner and were able to deal with stressful situations in a positive way, especially in a foreign environment. Throughout Europe, people are experiencing the consequences of flight and expulsion, and in Greece the challenge is particularly great. The project supported the schools in communicating the situation. It enabled the participants to see fates, recognize differences, show solidarity, respect the foreign and not fear it. Pupils with special difficulties were very well integrated by the young people and adults. Many discovered and showed their talents during the activities and developed a lasting interest in the project. The local and school support networks seem to become more efficient thanks to the better integrated parenthood. Also, more pupils with migrant backgrounds and other difficulties were encouraged to complete schooling until they reached an officially recognised degree. Recordings of the musical performances are available on DVD. A homepage documents project activities and results. Activities, strategy papers such as a handbook for a working group on intercultural dialogue in schools, worksheets and other project results are posted on EU results platforms.