There is no doubt that the European Union has been experiencing an unexpected refugee crisis since 2015.Refugees escaped from Syria,Afghanistan and African countries,most of them minors and even children,are now entering our educational systems.All the countries here represent nations where the number of refugees and immigrants is very high.So we need to enhance our teachers´ methods to welcome all the refugees and the immigrants and provide them with the right educational assistance.We,as teachers,are all qualified and experienced but in the light of this,until now, we have implemented inclusive actions,exclusively thanks to our empathy and our great love of teaching. Indeed the exchange of good practice,given by this project,acquires a huge value.Even more we need to overcome the serious problems with racism and bullying episodes we are continuously having in our schools.So we want our students personally to see what refugees in our different countries have to face to integrate and to be accepted;doing so that our students will develop empathy and understand that we all pertain to one world and that they cannot use the different skin colour or religion as an excuse to humiliate their fellow.So our project is about exploring best practice in these two areas,exchanging teaching methods and developing techniques and tools to help both teachers and students:the presence of refugees and immigrants in the classroom changes the dynamic of the learning environment,because of issues such as language difficulties,past traumatic experiences,bad interaction with other students which causes either bullying or racism episodes.By working together we can find a strong framework to support the structure in the schools to both teachers and students where refugees are present.This project has 6 partner institutes,all with experience in working with minority groups and disdvantaged students.Partners in Italy,Germany and France are very much at the coalface of migrant/refugees crisis,while partners in Ireland,Cyprus and Turkey have great experience in working with minorities,disadvantaged students,mostly refugees.To structurally approach such issues we want to:1)Listen to the needs,concerns,difficultiesencountered and general options of refugees and asylum seekers currently in our institutes.2)examine strategies currently in place in each institute to support refugees integrate successfully into the classroom and progress successfully along the Learning pathway.3)Adopt best practice from each school to stem any form of racism and bullying among young people not just in the classrooms.4)Create new approaches to help refugees to integrate into the European Educational system.5)Disseminate the project learning to as wide an educational audience as possible.To do this we planned to maintain clear our objectives: to empower teachers in managing the multicultural classroom and to abolish racism and bullying so we planned 4 short term student exchanges(4 students and 2 teachers per country),which will have different topics in order to better involve all students together with the hosting refugees, and 2 short term staff training events(2 teachers for each country).The first student exchange will take place in France,where the topic is GAME. Participants will visit a refugee welcoming house and some schools, including the hosting school,where there are classrooms with many refugees.Secondly,there will be the first STAFF training in Ireland where teachers will analyse the questionnaires sent from each country:collect difficulties and start working on some new innovative strategies,here they will also attend a mini course on new methodologies to better handle multicultural classes.The third mobility will be with students in Germany, where the topic is SPORT,here the idea is to share, exchange and compare the different programs which our countries offer to help refugees,also students will be working in mixed national groups on the topic with a special focus on the gender gap.Later in Italy,where the topic is FOOD,participants will overcome any prejudice by following workshops based on traditional food of all countries including the refugees' present in the hosting school;they will also meet the Lord Mayor who will display guests how Naples has been welcoming minors refugees for years.The 5th mobility:2nd STAFFtraining in Germany centered on the importance of language;participants will get knowlwdge on how the German educational system makes refugees feel closer to the new community by starting learning the national language.Later in Ireland where the topic is MUSIC,students will enjoy playing the instument they like and the music they prefer together,since music has always represented the common language able to join all people in the world.The last topic DRAMA in Turkey, students will have to act in mixed groups,including the hosting refugees, a play thus overcoming any shyness, acquiring more self esteem and confidence in themselves.
The European Union is still heavily influenced by the ongoing refugee crisis, even three years after the beginning of the project. A great number of minors and children are entering our education systems, and now there are also refugees from Ukraine. All the countries represented in the project are nations with a high number of refugees and immigrants. Therefore, we wanted to optimize methods to welcoming refugees and providing them with educational support. The exchange of best practices facilitated by this project became highly significant. Furthermore, we aimed to address issues related to racism and bullying that occur in our schools. Thus, we aimed to make our students aware of the challenges refugees face in our countries when trying to integrate and be accepted. This way, our students could develop empathy and understand that we all belong to one world. Our project aimed to exchange best practices and develop techniques to assist both teachers and students. When refugees and immigrants participate in classes, the dynamics of the learning environment can change due to issues like past traumatic experiences or language difficulties, which can lead to problems like bullying or racism. Through collaborative efforts, we could find common ground to support school structures. The project involved five partner schools, all of which have experience working with minority groups. The partners in Italy and Germany are particularly affected by the migrant/refugee crisis, while the partners in Ireland, Cyprus, and Turkey have a lot of experience working with minority groups. To address these issues structurally within the school system, we were able to achieve the following: - Raise awareness of the needs, concerns, and difficulties that refugees and asylum seekers currently experience in our schools. - Review the strategies currently used in schools to support the successful integration of refugees. - Exchange best practices from each partner school to combat any form of racism and bullying among young people, not only in the classroom. - Develop new approaches to facilitate the integration of refugees into the European education system. - Make the project's learning outcomes accessible to as wide an audience as possible. To achieve the above, we had planned to empower teachers to manage the multicultural classroom and curb racism and bullying. Therefore, we had planned four student exchanges with different thematic focuses to better engage all students with refugees, as well as two teacher training sessions. Initially, all dates had to be rescheduled as travel restrictions because the Covid pandemic made the planned trips impossible. As a result, we extended the project duration by another year. In Ireland, the first teacher training took place to work on new strategies. Here, we participated in a lecture at University College Cork on new methods for managing multicultural classrooms. The student mobility in Germany focused on sports. Various programs offered by our countries to help refugees were presented. The students visited the SC Freiburg football school and the Exit Asia kickboxing school that offers a special program for refugees. The meeting in Italy emphasized food and regional specialties. Additionally, there was a meeting with the mayor, and the guests were shown in an interactive presentation how Naples has been welcoming underage refugees for years. Another teacher training took place in Germany, where we showed our guests how the German system helps refugees feel closer to the new community by learning the language and receiving support for their integration. In Ireland, the meeting focused on music, and the students tried to create a musical piece together since music has always been the universal language that connects all people in the world. Here, too, there was a meeting at the University College Cork where students were introduced to how to interact with refugees. In Cyprus, students learned to express their sense of belonging through art. They also visited various traditional art and craft workshops to make the means of expression clear even without a common language. All these excursions supported the friendships and relationships the students formed with their peers. They experienced the culture, the school system and because they lived in host families they experienced very closely how people in that country live their everyday life. This means the target of lifelong learning is fulfilled, even we teachers, all of us avid and experienced travelers encountered situations which were new to us.