Nowadays modern school panorama reveals a worrying situation, as many of our students come from a rather disadvantaged environment, there are more and more immigrant kids who feel alone and misunderstood, a great number of our students are characterized by a general sense of discomfort and alienation. Plus, more and more pupils show a variety of problems, ranging from the “simple” lack of attention to serious and invalidating handicap. As a consequence, when this kind of “uniqueness” is not accepted, episodes of violence, bullying, xenophobia or homophobia occur, thus leading these students to abandon school or to find shelter in the parallel reality build through the use of social network, for instance. This project aims to improve inclusivity, overcome prejudices, create acceptance of every kind of diversity, so that students will see the school as a “safe harbour”, that is to say a sheltered place where to find sanctuary and spend serenely a large part of their path through life. The objectives of the project are, among others, the following: - promote an inclusive school - encourage the understanding and acceptance of the others in order to promote non-discriminatory behaviour, the sense of belonging to the group and the enhancement of differences; - facilitate appropriate forms of socialization, all of this in the light of promoting the development of key competences of European Citizenship. The achievement of these objectives will lead, as concrete results, to the reduction of bullying; the decrease in the level of school dropouts, the acceptance of diversity. The project stems from a basic idea, that through games and ludic strategies barriers and prejudices can be more easily overcome, so the project is focused on the building and implementation of some activities such as Life skill games, photography, coding activities, and so on. Each activity will be gradually built by the students under the guidance of teachers and/or experts through the constant communication and sharing of the materials between the partner countries in the period between mobilities. The actual realization and implementation of the final product of each activity will be during the course of each mobility. Each school will be assigned the activity in which it has more experience, in this way the students of each school will act as tutors for the students of the other countries, in a peer-to-peer environment that will encourage cooperation and increase self-esteem. Apart from a gradual development in the entire school staff of a mentality open to the European dimension of education and the improvement of the cooperation between teachers and students coming from a different cultural background, the impact on STUDENTS will reveal: • increase of self-confidence and self-esteem; • increased motivation to study; • improved knowledge and awareness of self and the other • demolition of the barrier inhibiting the psychological growth of the students; • improved fluency in the English language; • improved acceptance of diversity. Plus, one of the expected results in the long term is the promotion of a "culture of diversity", meant as an enhancement of uniqueness, which is a resource for the entire community, rather than a threat to be fought.
CONTEXT: The project involved a group of pupils aged 15 to 18, many of whom came from disadvantaged socio-economic family situations, such as immigrants with severe communication and linguistic difficulties or children of separated or unemployed parents, who have little time to devote to their children and therefore totally delegate the role of educator to the school. From all this springs unease among young people, which leads to phenomena of bullying, xenophobia, violent behaviour and lack of acceptance of diversity, and consequently we are faced by pupils with integrative difficulties, who often drop out of school. All these reflections gave rise to the need, on the part of the entire partnership, to get involved and take concrete action to solve these problems. So this project has aimed to improve inclusivity, overcome prejudices, create acceptance of every kind of diversity, so that students could see the school as a “safe harbour”, that is to say a sheltered place where to find sanctuary and spend serenely a large part of their path through life. The final number of pupils participating in the project was higher than the estimated one. Moreover, entire class groups were involved in the organization of the workshops. OBJECTIVES: The chosen objectives, consistently with the chosen priorities as they place the students and their problems at the centre of attention, and thus help to improve the training courses and the implementation of strategies for inclusion, have been: -promote an inclusive school; - encourage the understanding and acceptance of the others; - foster the synergy between school, family, and territory; - improve the teacher-learner relationship; - facilitate forms of socialization; - bring students closer to multicultural cooperative work; - promote the development of key competences of European Citizenship, in particular Communication in foreign languages, Digital competence, Learning to learn, Social and civic competences, Cultural awareness and expression. ACTIVITIES: These objectives have been achieved through playful-recreational workshops, such as: -Coding and Scratch; -Creation of a comic strip; -'Life-skills' games - photography and photostory making; -storytelling and storydoing. In order to effectively implement the project and encourage socialization between the various partners, a first extra mobility was organized in Italy, for teachers only, to replace the videoconference initially envisaged. During this mobility, laboratories were assigned to each school, based on the greatest competence, namely: Italy: Coding and Scratch; Spain: Toony Tool; Greece: photography; Lithuania: storytelling, and Romania: life-skills games. Decisions were also made on how to develop the workshops. So, the students of each school have acted as tutors for the students of the other countries, in a peer-to-peer environment that has encouraged cooperation and increased self-esteem. Each activity has been gradually built by the students under the guidance of teachers and/or experts through the constant communication and sharing of the materials between the partner countries in the period between mobilities. The actual realization and implementation of the final product of each activity has been done during the course of each mobility. Such educational-didactic proposals fit into the inclusive activities that encouraged students to become a community, sharing doubts and perplexities, in an atmosphere of complicity and fun characteristic of games. All this has offered young people in difficulty new opportunities for in-depth analysis and relationship, while enhancing the excellence against the dropout phenomenon. An intensive English course was held before each mobility to reinforce basic skills. Due to the pandemic it was not possible for each partner to organize a dissemination seminar. As a replacement, a choral online seminar (entitled "Sharing life experiences on integration") was organized through a Facebook live broadcast, which involved experts on the topic of inclusion. During this event, the project activities were shown. This was an added value to the project, as the participation of all partners at the same time, with local authorities, schools, experts, pupils, highlighted the essence of the project, through shared experience. RESULTS: -reduction of bullying; -decrease in the level of school dropouts; -acceptance of diversity; -increase of self-esteem; -improvement in English and ICT knowledge; -creation of a welcoming school environment; -reinforced motivation for study. LONGER-TERM BENEFITS: -development of a sense of belonging to European citizenship (confirmed by Europass, useful for students' future job) while maintaining each cultural identity; -improvement of social skills within the European framework; -reinforcement of communication in English language, through constant contacts with the partners.