Our project has been aimed at developing good educational practice in favour of social inclusion among adults, focusing on two main aspects: inclusion of migrants from different religious and cultural backgrounds and inclusion/emancipation of women. We have chosen these two horizontal priorities for a variety of reasons to be explained under the different points: All our schools have the same background: They are adult education centres based in small cities and specifically on working-class areas with a significant percentage of low-skilled labour and unemployment. The environment is also quite multicultural, with the presence of immigrants and ethnic minorities. All of these people share economic and social problems related to their lack of opportunities and access to proper jobs and culture-related activities. It must be noted that the majority of ours tudents are women, and that their situation is even worse: they tend to occupy the lowest positions and for migrant women this is likely to result in double discrimination for ethnic as well as for gender reasons. Such a context is complicated and there comes the importance of education and providing with second opportunities as a way to overcome social and economic difficulties. As we have seen in many occasions, if problems of this type are neglected and overlooked, we risk to contribute to the creation of ghettos and the rise of racist and xenophobic movements, as well as the youngsters' involvement in criminal organisations. Therefore, our project has focused on students approaching our schools in order to obtain the qualifications and/or training that they didn't obtain in the past, due to a number of socio-economic and cultural disadvantages. We are thinking of low-skilled people who need some basic training in order to find a job or to improve their career perspectives. Another group has been that of immigrants attending our lessons in order to learn our language and often also to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills (most of them are Moroccan women). The project has been present in all the lessons and groups, and 48 of the students that belonged to the target groups participated in the mobilities. The objectives of our project have been the following: -facilitating the inclusion of all the disadvantaged groups of students attending our school. The idea is a kind of melting pot where all people – regardless of gender or ethnic, religious or cultural background are fully respected and enjoy the same opportunities. This has implied enlarging the cultural as well as career prospects of our students and helping hem to fully developing all their talents. Another important aim has been that of fighting prejudices, to convince everybody that all human beings enjoy the same human rights and all have talents of different types. Taking part in such a European project has certainly motivated out students to continue with their studies. They have perceived this project and the mobilities as something to help them with their personal engagement and contribution.All the students were very thankful that they were able to participate in these activities, with comments such as: ‘it was thanks to this project that I noticed that I was good for studying, that I liked history and art’, or ‘it was thanks to this project that I wanted to learn more English’, or ‘it was thanks to this project that I made amends with schooling and formal education’. In oder to achieve these general and ambitious objectives, we have engaged the students in a number of activities concerning the integration of all cultures and races, as well as the emancipation of women (which were, as we pointed out , were the two horizontal priorities of the project): - study of the situation of women and racial discrimination through history, science and literature, with numerous examples depicting the plight of the less-favoured ones, with the students creating compositions, power point presentations and doing research by themselves, -debates and conferences by experts, -preparation of drama plays and short movies in which they had to recreate the life of a disadvantaged person, -photo exhibitions, -Creation of touristic booklets or guguides, created by the students, about the characteristics of their region, to be shared with the other students. A few examples of this work can be seen online: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZPC4v2UpxaZVU9kEM0bgDSTybBwMS7Vo/view -Creation of a magazine of the project, which depicts the reflections, results, photos and effort of the students and teachers that have participated in the project. It can be visited online at: https://issuu.com/annamaria.dibari/docs/giornalino_erasmus_grecia_spagna_italia. Apart from that, a number of copies has been printed out in each of the schools to be distributed among the local authorities, students and teachers. -Creation of a website for the project, which aims to be a compilation of the main activities that have been carried out in the project: https://sites.google.com/view/makingourschoolsabetterplace?usp=sharing -Participation in the social networks, so as to disseminate the objectives and results of the project: -Creation of a Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/people/Making-our-schools-a-better-place/100063955188522/ -Creation of a Twitter account: https://twitter.com/EpaLliria -Creation of a Youtube channel, where the videos created by the students or summarising the mobilities have been uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXYAswvxTtEMzzaX_FChsYA -Creation of multilingual didactic material: The mythic ‘Women’s Assembly’ by the ancient Greece playwright Aristophanes, was studied by the students of the three countries, as a way to get them to reflect on the situation of women throughout history. During the mobility, a scene of that play was distributed, in the 3 different languages, studied and represented by the students from the three countries: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jOimXaBwjvOSGQXT_GDUojYCQGinWTi0/view Apart from that, the teachers have participated in different conferences and venues to disseminate the project. Among the most important ones, we can mention: -In January 2022,we were invited by the Conselleria de Cultura, Educació i Ciència (part of the regional Government) to explain to other teachers our participation in the project (Jornada Informativa Erasmus +, as can be seen in the project’s website). -We have participated in Erasmus Days (2021 and 2022), with an intercrossed dissemination, in which a debate between the coordinators of the three countries was held and made public. -We have written articles and appeared in different local press publications, such as: https://laveudelliria.com/lescola-dadults-de-lliria-posa-rumb-a-grecia/ https://sites.google.com/view/makingourschoolsabetterplace/home?pli=1#h.trslqfkoiqux -We have participated and uploaded articles on EPALE, as the main and official website where teachers from adult education participate: -https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/node/327206 -https://epale.ec.europa.eu/it/content/rendere-le-nostre-scuole-un-posto-migliore -https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/content/making-our-schools-better-space-erasmus-strategic-partnership-inclusiveness -https://epale.ec.europa.eu/it/content/juntos-para-compartir The project had two other parallel and important objectives: raising European awareness and improving the students’ command of English. They were worked on throughout the years of the project, as the students got in contact with other students, had to communicate with them and created/read materials from the other partners, reflected on Europe’s multiculturality, etc. Overall, we have tried to use and active and task-based methodology, with the project somehow being present in all the different subjects and being a transversal topic to refer to. Students were very often asked to reflect about the different aspects of the project and produce their own materials, being thus protagonists and active agents of their own learning (with the creation of compositions, presentations, videos and drama plays). The results of the project have been tangible and gratifying for both parts (students and teachers), in aspects such as: -increase in the percentage of students who have continued with their studies, -the project as a way to improve the student’s effort during the academic year, -improvement of the students’ ability to communicate in English, as well as getting in contact with other languages, -growing awareness and acceptance of Europe’s multiculturality, -growing awareness of women empowerment The partnership started with the creation of the application form, in which the teachers from the three countries started to collaborate. Including the pandemic, it has lasted three years that we will lever forget. It has been a long and enriching experience. We have shared many moments with other European students and teachers, and are very proud to have given this opportunity to people who may never again benefit from opportunities like this. We hope the best for them and will always remember that we helped to improve their education and to fight against prejudices and stereotypes that hinder the emancipation of the human race.
Our objectives were developed as a consequence to the needs we detected among our students, therefore they were the following: -Reflect and think on social inclusion, taking into consideration the two axes on which the project was based: inclusion of all the races into society and inclusion of women, homosexual and transgender people into society. Both are aspects that affect the students at which this project was aimed, since they belong mainly to disadvantaged or not so well-off communities: migrant women, youngsters who dropped out of school, etc. -Help our students learn other languages, especially English -Help our students gain an insight into the cultural, linguistic and historical richness of the different countries of Europe, as well as the benefits of belonging to the European Union. -Help our students gain an understanding of how important it is to have an educational and cultural background to find better job opportunities and life perspectives, as well as improving their will to pursue their studies: with our students having abandonned their schooling before arriving at our school, it is our duty to make an effort to get them into the path of studying and not dropping out of their studies again.
In all the cases we noticed there were certain needs that could be tackled and that worked as an engine when we decided to apply for this European grant: -The three schools are located in working class areas from not so rich European countries. -The three schools work with students that need some help in learning languages and opening their minds, since they have scarce possibilities to travel on their own. -Our students are in need of social inclusion and education and European projects can serve as a tool for their finding a better job and thus a better life, with many dropouts (and most of them having dropped out of school before arriving to our centres). -The necessity to educate our students against biases connected to race and gender, as well as developing a European awareness.