The project ‘Między Otwartością, Szacunkiem, Tożsamością’; MOST (‘Bridges Between Openness, Respect and Identity’) addresses the issues of unprecedented influx of refugees to Europe, their social integration and inclusion, at the time when EU countries experience the crisis of values, intensified by terrorist attacks. European societies face problems of EU ideas disintegration, terrorism, populism, xenophobia, hyper-nationalism, inability to determine the boundaries of national identity, hate speech in public space, conflicts at the crossroads of cultures. The main objective of the project is the renewal of European values in the education and upbringing of young people. The target groups of the project are high school students, aged 16-19, and their teachers. The achievement of the main objective will result from meeting the specific ones: people from different cultural background will get to know one another, there will take place identification of educational problems resulting from threat situations in multicultural societies, enhancing positive perception of multiculturalism and fostering positive attitude towards peers from different cultural backgrounds, eliminating stereotypes and cultural prejudices, strengthening cultural identity by respect for the values represented by other communities, and setting the boundaries for one’s own cultural identity. There are five partners to the project: I Społeczne Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Unii Europejskiej in Zamość (Poland), Gewerbliche Schule in Schwäbisch Hall (Germany), Lycee Claude Gellee in Epinal (France), Istituto d'Istruzione Superiore "F.S. Nitti" in Potenza (Italy), 1st EPA.L Orestiadas (Greece), which means at least 125 students and 30 teachers. There are planned 16 local activities, 8 virtual ones and 5 mobilities. The local activities comprise: students presentations of their own cultural background, activities concerning recognition and prevention of ‘hate speech’ in public space, photo and film contest devoted to multiculturalism, public survey, artistic expression activities, workshops for teachers in the field of psychosocial skills (necessary in multicultural education) and dissemination activities. Virtual activities involve board game creation, Internet Film Festival, online contest of posters to prevent stereotypes, photo blog, and tasks related to project activities presentation. The planned mobilities involve a short-term training event for employees. The aim is to exchange experience, identify problems in a multicultural society, present and develop methods and tools useful while working in multicultural school environment, and showing the importance of learning through experience to reach the project goals. During the short-term exchanges of students in Italy, Germany and France, integration of young people from different countries and social groups will take place. Young people will have an opportunity to get to know problems of migrants in different countries, they will realise the consequences of crossing the borders of cultural/national identity and they will understand the importance of European values in everyday life. The project comprises methods of learning through experience, which will make the participants find themselves in situations causing strong emotions, involving higher feelings, allowing them to reconsider their system of values and create new values for themselves. During the project implementation activating methods of learning and teaching will be used, such as: group work, simulations, role play, discussions and debates, educational games, field trips. Tangible results will be produced, such as: websites, photo blog, summary videos, multimedia presentations, board game, film etudes prepared by students, plans of activities with students, photos, numerous art works, Internet dictionary of ‘HATE-LOVE speech’, all of them connected with boundaries of cultural identity and European values. Intangible results will be of much higher importance. These will be competences referring to positive perception of multiculturalism and positive attitude of peers coming from diverse cultural backgrounds, such as freedom, democracy, respect for human dignity, tolerance, human rights. They will contribute to elimination of cultural stereotypes and prejudices and they will create positive attitude of communities towards multiculturalism, as the upbringing promoting European values will still be visible when the students start their lives as adults and become important members of local communities.
The project 'Miedzy Otwartością, Szacunkiem, Tożsamością' - MOST (‘Bridges Between Openness, Respect and Identity') was meant as a response to problems related to the influx of refugees to Europe, their integration and social inclusion at a time when the societies of EU countries were experiencing a crisis of values, intensified by terrorist attacks. European countries felt the problems of disintegration of European ideas, the phenomena of terrorism, populism, xenophobia, hyper-nationalism, hate speech in public space, conflicts at the crossroads of cultures and the inability to determine the boundaries of national identity. The main aim of the project was to revitalise European values in education and training of young people and therefore the target groups of the project activities were secondary school pupils (16-19 years olds) and teachers. The main objective was achieved through the implementation of specific objectives: mutual acquaintance of people from different cultures or with different cultural backgrounds, recognition of educational problems in the situations of threat resulting from the multiculturalism of society, increasing positive perception of multiculturalism and evoking positive attitude of young people towards their peers from different cultural backgrounds, eliminating stereotypes and prejudices, strengthening cultural identity by respecting the values held by other communities and setting boundaries of their own cultural identity. Five partner schools were involved in direct implementation of the project activities: I Społeczne Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Unii Europejskiej in Zamość (Poland), Gewerbliche Schule in Schwäbisch Hall (Germany), Lycee Claude Gellee in Epinal (France), Istituto d'Istruzione Superiore "F.S. Nitti" (currently IIS 'L. da Vinci - Nitti') in Potenza (Italy), 1st EPA.L Orestiadas (Greece). In total, at least 110 students and 68 teachers took part in the project activities. All the participants were interested in the project topics and willing to undertake activities beyond the curriculum and compulsory educational activities, wishing to acquire new competences in working in an intercultural environment. A total of 16 local activities were carried out (student studies on the concept of presenting one's own culture, tasks related to reacting to the "hate speech" in public space, photo and film competition, street poll, activities related to artistic expression, workshops for teachers on psychosocial skills), necessary in intercultural education and meetings promoting and disseminating the project), 8 virtual ones (board games, Internet Film Festival, on-line competition connected with preparation of posters preventing stereotyping, photoblog and activities connected with presenting the course of project works) and 5 mobilities: short training programme for employees (which aimed to exchange experiences, identify problems in communication in a multicultural society, show and develop methods and techniques of work useful in a school multicultural environment, indicate the usefulness of teaching by surviving the project objectives) and short-term exchanges of groups of students in Italy, Germany and France (young people became acquainted with the problems of migrants in different countries, learned where the crossing of cultural/national identity borders can lead and understood the importance of European values in everyday life). The project used the method of experiential learning, thanks to which the participants found themselves in situations that evoked strong emotions, involving higher feelings, which contributed to the evaluation process. During the project activating methods of learning and teaching were used, such as: group work, simulations, role-playing, discussions and debates, educational games, field trips. During the project, measurable results were developed: websites, photoblogs, films, presentations, board games, short films, lesson scenarios, photographs, art works, online dictionaries - all related to the borders of cultural identity and European values. The following soft results were achieved: competences related to a positive perception of multiculturalism and a positive attitude towards peers from different cultural circles, the ability to set boundaries of cultural expansion, adherence to European values such as freedom, democracy, equality, respect for human dignity, tolerance, human rights. They helped to break down stereotypes and cultural prejudices and have triggered a positive attitude of societies towards multiculturalism. Thanks to the project, stakeholders have developed autonomy and broadened their horizons for pro-European thinking, increased the acceptance of European values and gained new competences in multiculturalism, which is conducive to building a society based on European values.