Every learner should develop a sense of personal and cultural identity that is receptive and respectful towards others. Learning providers should plan in all subjects to develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes which will enable learners to participate in our multi-ethnic society in Europe. They should develop approaches which support the ethnic/cultural identities of all learners and reflect a range of perspectives, to engage learners and prepare them for life as global citizens. The main idea of the project '' United in our diversity : our roots , our strength '' consists in a research about a particular community in our each partner's country. The pupils will acquire particular knowledge on history, geography, social conditions in the participating countries. ( REUNION / UNITED KINGDOM/ ITALY ) The project is also centered on an European cooperation among project partners that will give opportunities to our pupils who come from socially and economically underprivileged areas, to improve their language skills and develop key competences . It will thus be an opportunity for the young people to learn the basic language of the hosting and visiting countries. The participants of the project are mostly young people aged 12-14, coming from rural areas, often from families striving against unemployment as well as social or cultural barriers. All in all, this project will raise awareness of students about the importance of accepting others with their differences , of dealing with integration issues. With this project, we want to make our students understand that different cultures can live together and create unity in differences. Our focus is to involve students in exchanges in order to give them the possibility to compare themself with other nationalities coming from different part on the world remaining European, this will enhance their sense of belonging to a bigger community then their towns mixing this with the European values nowadays mandatory to be known by our pupils. Childhood is the period during which our thoughts and behaviors are formed, which we call as the formation period.School education should take the advantage of this period to gain children a critical and creative approach. This is exactly the consideration that motivated us to prepare this project. The project activities will take students out of general school curriculum and help them remove sociological and psychological barriers (through increasing self-esteem, analysing one’s weaknesses and strength etc.), but this project will also expose them into openness to new innovative tools connected with non-formal education. Schools have a crucial role to play in building community cohesion by creating environments characterised by racial tolerance and respect, and by preparing learners to be effective citizens. This project would have an important role to play in terms of ensuring that learners have a heightened sense of belonging to their local community and country whilst also learning to value and respect other cultures and traditions outside their immediate experience. Thus we believe that this will help children gain a new perspective in the way they perceive the world surrounding them.
The objective of the project was to give ambition to the pupils, to fight against social determinism and to give at best equal opportunity to them to succeed in integrating into the society of tomorrow. We are more convinced now than ever that schools must play a key role in building community cohesion by creating environments conducive to racial tolerance and respect for others to prepare the adults of tomorrow to fully play their role of citizens. We carried out this project keeping in mind the core values of the European Union that we wanted to transmit not only to the participants of the project but also to the entire school community of the 4 schools committed in it. This partnership project aimed to promote the area of peace represented by the European Union, to disseminate the European spirit through the democratic values it embodies in general, to disseminate tolerance and cultural integration in particular. It is through this prism therefore that the various activities were carried out by our young students to understand their intangible heritage in the context of the cultural diversity which is the strength of the European Union.The participants were able to discover the historical heritage and culture of the countries visited (Italy and Reunion) but they also discovered historical and cultural specificities of England that they were unable to visit due to the COVID19 crisis (powerpoint posted on Etwinning, on the drive and the project site; but also during the English classes). The discovery of Reunion Island by the Italians was a highlight in the project. The island is a melting pot where the inherent cultural and social diversity represents one of the greatest strengths against racism. It would be fair to say that the various activities that were organized first in Italy and then in Réunion have strongly contributed to the learning process and were mainly focused on the expected results that is to say the recognition and the acceptance of differences, the openness to the outside world which makes it possible to instill in pupils the desire to fully play their role as European citizens. The exchange of knowledge was therefore the ideal way for participants to meet other young Europeans but also to highlight the richness and diversity of the different countries that make up the European Union. By putting their skills into practice outside the classroom, our students have shown themselves to be more active and invested in their learning process. This observation is even truer for our struggling students who participated in the project. The discovery workshops gave them the opportunity to experience success outside of school, to surpass themselves and to shine in fields until then unknown to them or which aroused reluctance or concerns. All the tasks carried out throughout the duration of the project (including the making of the animated film and the comic strip) enabled the students to overcome sociological and psychological barriers (by increasing self-esteem, analyzing their weaknesses and stregths), but also exposed them to an openness to new innovative tools linked to non-formal education. And the virtual mobility carried out with the Italian school just confirmed this fact and made them more aware of the importance of knowing how to use digital technology in the job market to which they will belong in the near future. This project gave learners an increased sense of belonging to their local community and country, while learning to value and respect other cultures and traditions outside of their immediate experience. The dissemination initiated by the students and adults involved in the project and the final result, in particular the comic strip made available to all the partners and their communities, to the local schools and authorities in the partners' hometowns (digital and paper version) will ensure continuity of the activities with the objectives set at the start of the project. The educational use that could be made of the comic strip and the testimonies from the participants will benefit not only the school communities but also to a larger number of people including to the people in the students' lives. We strongly believe taht this project has really helped our students gain a new perspective on how they perceive the world around them.The greater openness to the outside world that this project has brought to all the participants is something remarkable and will enhance a better understanding and acceptance of people from another country.Moreover the students and teachers had the opportunity to improve their language skills (English and French) and discover and practise new languages too ( Italian, creole ).