Not only the different European strategies (E.g. “Europe 2020” or the “Inclusion and Diversity Strategy”) see the issue of social inclusion as a major target – especially the different education acts of the different countries and the individual school policies make it one of their primary goals to face and challenge discrimination based on ethnic diversity. Here, our schools have a key function and a diverse school, a school without discrimination, a school, which supports the personality development, a liberal minded school, a tolerant and democratic school is the overall objective – not only in today’s society. Many different actions already accept the challenge and we engage in different projects that spread the message that all people are equal – regardless of ethnicity, ability, skin color, socio-economic background, appearance, educational level, language spoken etc. Everybody’s chances are improved when understanding and acceptance are imprinted on the individual. This can best be done by positive experience and with this project we can make a next step and work on the issue on a higher level. Already when travelling to another country it becomes a little less likely for the respective person to become a National Socialist and with such a project we will even have a bigger impact on students, teachers, society in general and in the end on the European Union itself. 6 schools from 6 different European countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Portugal – are planning to make a change by addressing different topics in the field of interest. We want to show that egoism and nationalism are not a solution – we can only benefit from a diverse society. To reach our goals in the years of the project we are planning 5 different meetings with students and teachers, which include different activities. The first meeting in Germany will concentrate on self-awareness and the question how we see and define ourselves. It will be interesting to see if the ethnic background matters when defining your identity and we want to define the term identity for us. Of course, the first meeting will also be used to introduce each other and our schools and we want to present how diverse our schools are on a map. The second meeting is planned in Portugal and will now center around the image of the other and how we see and perceive others. E.g. prejudices, stereotypes, traditions and religion will be looked at, this, by e.g. an artistic approach. The schools will also introduce their countries and we want to know what distinguishes us from the other. After getting to know the others and us it’s time to change perspectives and to walk into someone else’s shoes to enhance understanding, acceptance and tolerance at the third meeting in Spain. We will focus on the question “What does it take to feel at home?” by interviewing immigrants and refugees and by simulating the different stages from being a migrant to being a citizen. A creative approach will come in handy as well. Consequently, it’s now time to question how we can benefit from a diverse society and what our schools can do to welcome diversity. At the meeting in Denmark we will set joint goals for everyone to be put into practice until the next meeting. Also, we want to create a board game in Denmark (“Trivial Pursuit Europe”) to be used at school. The last meeting in the Netherlands focuses on global and personal goals with regards to migrant issues in the future. Students and politicians will be addressed and questioned. During the project, different methods and approaches will be applied to reach our individual goals and to create many different products, which will be distributed to be used in classes, other schools and communities (e.g. slideshows, booklets, posters, shirts, presentations, calendar, recipe book, book, videos, comics, simulated game, board game). A project homepage and a Facebook page will document our project and its progress. The impact will be positive in many ways and our encouragement will motivate them. For students as well for teachers the project establishes a consolidation of the foreign language and the intercultural competence. The contact with students from other countries will also be interesting for the parents of the native students. They will learn about the customs of the European countries. Finally, want to implement our achievements, results and the learnt input in our schools’ curricula. In the end we hope that we can make a lasting impact on the European Union and we want to make a change to ensure that our students are prepared for Europa after their school life.
The issue of social inclusion as a major target – especially the different education acts of the different countries and the individual school policies make it one of their primary goals to face and challenge discrimination based on ethnic diversity. Here, our schools had and have a key function and a diverse school, a school without discrimination, a school, which supports the personality development, a liberal minded school, a tolerant and democratic school was the overall objective.At each school many different actions have already accepted the challenge and we all engage in different projects that spread the message that all people are equal – regardless of ethnicity, ability, skin color, socio-economic background, appearance, educational level, language spoken etc. With our project we supported understanding and acceptance, we created positive experience and with this project we made step forward and worked on the issue on a higher level. 6 schools from 6 different European countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Portugal – wanted to make a change by addressing different topics in the field of interest. We wanted to show that egoism and nationalism are not a solution – we can only benefit from a diverse society. To reach our goals in the years of the project we had 5 different meetings with students and teachers, which included different activities. The first meeting in Germany concentrated on self-awareness and the question how we see and define ourselves. It was interesting to see that the ethnic background was not the major issue when defining your identity and we defined the term identity for us. Of course, the first meeting was also used to introduce each other and our schools and we presented how diverse our schools are on a map. The second meeting took place in Portugal and centered around the image of the other and how we see and perceive others. E.g. prejudices, stereotypes, traditions and religion were looked at with an artistic approach. The schools also introduced their countries and we wanted to find out what distinguishes us from the other. After getting to know the others and us it was time to change perspectives and to walk in someone else’s shoes to enhance understanding, acceptance and tolerance at the third meeting in Spain. We focused on the question “What does it take to feel at home?” by interviewing immigrants and refugees and by simulating the different stages from being a migrant to being a citizen. A creative approach came in handy as well. Consequently, it was now time to question how we can benefit from a diverse society and what our schools can do to welcome diversity. At the meeting in Denmark we set joint goals for everyone to be put into practice until the next meeting. Also, we created a board game in Denmark (“Trivial Pursuit Europe”) to be used at school. The last meeting in the Netherlands focused on global and personal goals with regards to migrant issues in the future. Students and politicians were addressed and questioned. During the project, different methods and approaches were applied to reach our individual goals and to create many different products, which are distributed to be used in classes, other schools and communities (e.g. slideshows, booklets, posters, shirts, presentations, calendar, recipe book, book, videos, comics, simulated game, board game). A project homepage and a Facebook page still documents our project and its progress (www.welcomingdiversityatschool.weebly.com). The impact was and will be positive in many ways and our encouragement will motivate them further. For students as well as for teachers the project established a consolidation of the foreign language and the intercultural competence. The contact with students from other countries was also interesting for the parents of the native students. They learned about the customs of the European countries. We implemented our achievements, results and the learnt input in our schools’ curricula. In the end we hope that we could make a lasting impact on the European Union and that we made a change to ensure that our students are prepared for Europa after their school life.