The common problem all the school partners are facing is a low level of intercultural understanding and awareness competences among the pupils from the three partner schools from RO, CZ and SK. Moreover this problem is accentuated by the limited capacity of the teachers in the three general schools to organize integrative and participative nonformal activities that would contribute to an increased level of intercultural understanding and awareness competences among the pupils from the three partner schools. Complementary, the youth workers in the three partner Youth NGOs identified the lack of synergy between teachers and youth workers in organizing nonformal activities for intercultural understanding. Youth workers are not in position to understand the context and possibilities of teachers and vice versa. O1 Raise the level of intercultural understanding competences and expose 42 pupils aged 14-15 from the three partner schools to intercultural context, until the end of the project. O2 Raise the level of competences of facilitation of intercultural understanding activities by making full use of integrative and participative nonformal methods for 18 teachers in the field of social sciences from the three partner schools, until the end of the project. O3 Create synergy among 18 teachers from the three partner schools and the 9 youth workers from the three partner Youth NGOs to create a framework for future collaboration on enhancing intercultural understanding competences to young people, until the end of the project. Through the first two activities, C1 and C2 (Job Shadowing) we will create a common space in Bilbor, Romania for sharing know-how on teaching methods regarding interculturality. These two mobilities are addressed to 9 teachers and 9 youth workers, 3 from each country. Both categories of participants will have the opportunity to enrich their practical knowledge, skills and attitudes towards interculturality and how it can be tackled through formal and non-formal learning. C3 reunites 18 teachers and 9 youth workers in a TC on how to use nonformal methods in intercultural understanding. For the C4, the 42 pupils from the RO, CZ, SK are young people who have a scarce contact with other cultures. This exchange comes as an answer to their need of getting to know other cultures, traditions, languages. They will become more opened to cultural differences, will be able to benefit from both youth workers and teachers and the combination of the two teaching styles. They will find out about Erasmus+ opportunities and will broaden their horizons in terms of interculturality. Short-term: The participants will take an active part in discovering intercultural understanding, for most of them this would be the first encounter with the nonformal learning methods. Our project aims to raise the awareness of intercultural understanding and it’s need in a today’s plural society, especially in the communities in which there is a limited access of pupils to intercultural understanding and teachers have a low level of expertise in using nonformal methods. Our project will contribute to increase the level of competences of 18 teachers and 9 youth workers from partner schools and NGOs in using nonformal methods to raise the level on intercultural understanding competences. Moreover, 42 pupils aged 14-15 years old from the three partner schools will take part in a mobility that will provide them hands-on experience on intercultural contexts. They will improve competences in intercultural understanding. By the end of the project the participants including youth workers, teachers and pupils will work together to create a brochure with nonformal methods used in developing intercultural understanding. Also we will create a video about the project that will be shared in social media by the participants in order to increase the visibility of the project results. Long-term: Participants will contribute to increasing the level of cultural understanding in the communities they come from and promote unity in diversity in Europe. Teachers and youth workers involved in the project will increase their level of competences on how to apply nonformal methods and techniques in their work.
The common problem all the school partners were facing was a low level of intercultural understanding and awareness competences among the pupils from the three partner schools from RO, CZ and SK. This problem was emphasized by the limited capacity of the teachers in the three general schools to organize integrative and participatory non-formal activities that would contribute to an increased level of intercultural understanding and awareness competences among their pupils. Complementary, the teachers had the need to explore the non-formal side of education by creating synergies with staff of other institutions that have experience in this field. The objectives reached by the end of the project are: O1. 42 pupils aged 14-19 from the three partner schools raised their level of intercultural understanding competences being exposed to intercultural contexts. O2. 18 teachers in the field of social sciences from the three partner schools raised their level of competences of facilitation of intercultural understanding activities by using integrative and participatory non-formal methods. O3. Was created a synergy among 18 teachers from the three partner schools and 9 staff members of 3 partner NGOs experienced in the non-formal education that facilitated a framework for future collaboration on enhancing intercultural understanding competences to pupils. Through the first two activities, C1 and C2 (Short-term joint staff training events) we created a common space in Bilbor, Romania for sharing know-how on teaching methods regarding interculturality. These two learning training and teaching activities were addressed to 9 teachers and 9 NGO staff, 3 from each country. Both categories of participants had the opportunity to enrich their practical knowledge, skills and positive attitudes towards interculturality and learned how it can be fostered through formal and non-formal learning methods. C3 (Short-term joint staff training event) reunited 18 teachers and 9 members of the non-governmental organisations in order to learn how to use non-formal methods in intercultural understanding. In the C4 activity (Short-term exchanges of groups of pupils) were involved 42 pupils from the RO, CZ, SK who had a scarce contact with other cultures. This exchange came as an answer to their need of getting to know other cultures, traditions, languages. They became more opened to cultural differences and became more aware of the non-formal educational methods. They found out about Erasmus+ opportunities and broadened their horizons in terms of cultural diversity. The impact on participants stands in the fact that they discovered intercultural understanding, for most of them this was the first encounter with the non-formal learning methods. Our project promoted intercultural understanding and it’s need in nowadays plural society, especially in the communities in which there is a limited access of pupils to cultural diversity and teachers have a low level of expertise in using non-formal methods. Our project contributed to increase the level of competences of 18 teachers and 9 staff members of NGOs in using non-formal methods to raise the level on intercultural understanding competences. Moreover, 42 pupils aged 14-19 years old from the three partner schools took part in a short exchange of pupils where got hands-on experience on intercultural contexts. They improved their intercultural understanding competences. By the end of the project, all the participants including teachers and pupils worked together to create a brochure with non-formal methods used in developing intercultural understanding. Also, the visibility of the project was high by sharing the video on social media. On a longer term, participants contribute to increasing the level of cultural understanding in their communities and promote unity in diversity in Europe. Teachers and staff of the non-governmental organisations involved in the project increased their level of competences on how to apply non-formal methods and techniques in their work with pupils.