Our municipality is receiving a large number of immigrants and refugees. Many of these newly arrived foreigners, due to their age, start up their social activity in our upper secondary school. The local government implements a series of measures for their everyday life in school and in the community. School stuff is also offered participation at conferences, courses, meetings related to refugees and immigrants situation. Through this project we struggle to focus on the ordinary students, either native, already integrated immigrants or second generation ones. What we are focusing to achieve through this project will lead to a better encounter between these ones and the newly arrived. Having in view the environmental, economic, political, humanitarian crises and wars, ongoing in the world, we need to focus on the maintenance and further development of our democratic societies. The situation is furthermore compounded by a crisis of vision and values. We need to educate our students to the democratic values, promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship. The teachers involved in the project have been selected according to their linguistic competences, cultural background, coordination skills and curricula. We all have to be aware of our European citizenship and to be sensitive to the above issues. The fundamental idea of the project is for students and teachers to experimentally and interdisciplinary approach the identity of the immigrant and refugee and to realize that we all potentially are refugees or immigrants. The objective is to welcome cultural diversity and to remove discrimination and segregation within the school and the wider social environment.There are six teachers, one headmaster and six groups of students involved in the mobilities. We intend to use different methodologies for carrying out the planned activities, like making documentary podcast, having exhibitions, creating games, writing note-books, having oral presentations on the thematic topics. Students will get a valuable management experience in the project and will require transverse competence such as planning, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking and innovation. They will also use and improve their knowledge of foreign languages as well as information and communication technologies. When it comes to long-terms benefits we can mention that the mobility results will be integrated in the curriculum so that all students in school will approach them, the concrete material will be published on the website to everybody's access. The school representatives, both adults and youngsters will continue the cooperation with other schools, local organisation but also national and international ones.
Our municipality has received a large number of immigrants and refugees during the last years. Particularly the year of 2015 was very abundant in receiving unaccompanied minor youngsters. Many of these newly arrived foreigners, due to their age, gradually started up their social activity in our upper secondary school. The local government has implemented a series of measures for their everyday life in school and in the community. School staff has also been offered participation at conferences, courses, meetings related to refugees and immigrants. Through this project we struggled to focus on the ordinary students, either native, already integrated immigrants or second generation ones. What we focused to achieve through this project would lead to a better encounter and an everyday cooperation between these ones and the newly arrived. Having in view the environmental, economic, political, humanitarian crises and wars, ongoing in the world, even close to us, in Europe, we need to continuously focus on the maintenance and further development of our democratic societies. The situation is furthermore compounded by a crisis of vision and values. We need to educate our students to the democratic values, promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship. The teachers involved in the project were selected according to their professional and linguistic competences, cultural background, coordination skills and curricula. We all have to be aware of our European citizenship and to be sensitive to the above issues. The fundamental idea of the project is for students and teachers to experientially and interdisciplinary approach the identity of the immigrant and refugee and to realize that we all potentially are refugees or immigrants. The objective is to welcome cultural diversity and to remove discrimination and segregation within the school and the wider social environment. There were five teachers, one headmaster and six groups of four students between 16 and 19 years old, involved in the mobilities. Project activities took place as collaborative work in transnational groups, either in the distance (before the mobility) or during the meetings. Students made research about the various topics and presented the results to the other partners during the meetings. We intended to use different methodologies for carrying out the planned activities, like making documentary podcasts, having exhibitions, creating comics and games, producing diaries, writing note-books, having oral presentations on thematic topics and wrapping up all the activities in a multicultural festival. Students were initially acquainted and interacted before every mobility through e Twinning platform, different social media platforms like Skype, face-book, Instagram, chart and mails. Students definitively got a valuable management experience in the project and proved to acquire transverse competences such as planning, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking and innovation. They also realized the necessity of respect towards human rights as well as of undertaking initiatives in order to contribute to solutions in society.They used and improved their knowledge of foreign languages as well as information and communication technologies. When it comes to long-term benefits we can mention that the mobility results will be integrated in the curriculum so that all students in school will approach them. The concrete material of the activities is published on the website to everybody's access. The school representatives, both adults and youngsters will continue the cooperation with other schools, local organizations but also national and international ones. The shift of attitudes towards multicultural aspects in our school environment and in our communities gained a higher importance thanks to the project activities. Ultimately the project's major goal was to highlight the fact that we humans, all of us, irrespective of the place we live in, can welcome new populations and live together in a respectful, sustainable and peaceful environment .