Croats as indigenous minority communities today live in 12 European countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Italy, Kosovo, Hungary, Northern Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia. Affected of various historical, political and economic reasons, from the 15th century began to emigrate from then Croatian territories to other European territories, which are today located in the mentioned 12 countries, while some of them are immigrated to them at the same time as to the territory of today's Republic of Croatia. By participating in this project, we want to empower the young Croatian community - the primary students schools in the countries of origin and preserve their culture and encourage them to do the same. We want to act to preserve the Croatian dialects that are in extinction which are contributing significantly to the diversity of the Croatian language. We believe it is of the utmost importance and in line with European values to preserve the heritage as well intangible and tangible cultural heritage, and one way of preserving them is definitely to transfer cultural characteristics, meanings and values to the younger generations. If we convey to our students love and care for the heritage of their homeland, as well as for the heritage of parts of the Croatian people who, as national minorities, live in other European countries and teach them to appreciate diversity, we will make them preservers of heritage as well as creators of new heritage. Leading ourselves with all of the above, we came up with the idea for this project in collaboration with a Croatian professor in Italy, at Acquaviva Collecroce (Kruè) at Scuola Elementare School Nicola Neri (Istituto Comprensivo Amodio Ricciardi). The professor is on an exchange to teach classes to the Croatian language minority. During the interview we realized that the language and customs of Molise Croats are quite different from the languages and customs of Croats in Croatia. The project involves four partners, schools that provide Croatian language lessons for members of minorities from Italy, Serbia, Austria and the project coordinator is from Croatia. The goals of our project are: to stimulate learning about cultural heritage, to contribute to strengthening the linguistic competences of young generations of members of the Croatian national minority, to contribute to the construction and strengthening of national identity among students of the Croatian national minority living in the Republic of Croatia, to contribute to the understanding of differences in cultural identities and heritage of members of the Croatian national minority and linguistic minorities outside the Republic of Croatia, encouraging creativity and literature of pupils and teachers, cooperation with partners from other countries and regions, thus opening the door to school and acting in a European environment, encouraging active involvement of our school students in activities beyond compulsory teaching, creating EU value citizenship, learning about cultures different about ours, encouraging diversity and its acceptance as well as acquiring transversal competences for our students in an international environment. The project will have 4 different learning activities that will involve both students and professors. Through activity called "Once Upon a Time in Our Area", project participants will become familiar with playing traditional games for children, that is, those games our old ones played outdoors in a time when technology was not yet occupying our lives. The language workshop will serve as a preparation for the development of a distinctive vocabulary that we plan to create in the project, and through a lecture on Glagolitic script and a workshop on drafting a Glagolitic script student will get to know the rich Glagolitic heritage. Through an activity called "The Sound of Music" students will learn traditional tunes from Molise Croats, contributing to an understanding of the rich heritage of members of the Croatian national and linguistic minority outside the Republic of Croatia, and through the language workshop they will be introduced to phonological, phonetic, morphological and syntax features of old Croatian dialect and will learn a few words. Activities called "How we used to play" also envisage learning traditional games and dancing traditional dances, making traditional toys, and collecting recipes for making traditional dishes. An activity called "I' wanna dance" provides two workshops. In a music-drama workshop, students will rehearse Croatian mini-musical (playing, singing, dancing, acting) through learning old Croatian folk songs. In a language workshop, students will be introduced to the different language features of the three neighborhood villages and will collect the words needed to create a multilingual dictionary.
Through participation in this project, we empowered the young Croatian community-elementary school students in their home countries, worked to preserve their culture and encouraged them to do the same.We worked to preserve the Croatian dialects that are dying out, and that contribute significantly to the diversity of the Croatian language.At the same time,we made students from partner schools who are not members of the Croatian national minority aware of the existence of the aforementioned minorities and provided them with an opportunity for better mutual understanding and appreciation.We are of the opinion that the preservation of heritage and intangible and material cultural heritage is of exceptional importance and in accordance with European values,and one of the ways of their preservation is definitely the transmission of cultural features,meanings and values to younger generations.If we convey to students love and care for the heritage of their homeland,as well as for the heritage of the parts of the Croatian people who live as national minorities in other European countries and teach them to appreciate diversity,we will make them caretakers of heritage,but also creators of new heritage.The project involved four partners.The coordinator of the project was ES Bakar from Croatia, and the partners are schools that hold Croatian language classes for members of minorities from Elementary School Ivan Milutinović from Serbia, Istituto Comprensivo Ricciardi from Italy and Neue Musikmittelschule Großpetersdorf with Croatian emphasis from Austria.The goals of our project were: encouraging learning about cultural heritage,contributing to strengthening the language competences of the young generation of members of the Croatian national minority, contributing to the building and strengthening of national identity among students belonging to the Croatian national minority living in the Republic of Croatia, contributing to the understanding of diversity in the cultural identities and heritage of members of the Croatian national and linguistic minorities outside the Republic of Croatia and raising awareness of the people (Italians,Austrians and Serbs) about the specificity of the culture of Croatian national minorities which is intertwined with their culture,encouraging the creativity and literacy of students and teachers,cooperation with partners from other countries and regions and thus opening school doors and activities in the European environment,encouraging the active involvement of students of participating schools in activities outside of compulsory classes, creating the value of EU citizenship,learning about different cultures,encouraging diversity and their acceptance and acquiring transversal competences of students in an international environment and raising awareness of the people(Italians, Austrians and Serbs) about the specificity of the culture of the Croatian national minorities, which is intertwined with their culture.In the project, we had 4 different learning activities in which both students and teachers were involved.C1 activity called Once upon a time in our region was held in May 2022 in Croatia. The participants in the project had the opportunity to learn about playing traditional games for children,those games that our elders played outside in the time before technology took over our lives.The language workshop served as a preparation for the creation of the distinguishing dictionary that was created in the project, and through a lecture on Glagolitic and a workshop on creating the Glagolitic script, the students got to know the rich Glagolitic heritage.C3 activity called How we used to play was held in October 2022 in Serbia. At this activity too, the students got to know traditional games and dances, made traditional toys from corncobs and straw, participated in language workshops and collected recipes for making traditional dishes.C2 activity called Let's enjoy together was held in April in Italy.The students had the opportunity to hear native speakers of our language and the traditional chants of Molise Croats,which contributed to a better understanding of the rich heritage of the Croatian national and linguistic minority in the province of Molise.Through the language workshop,they became familiar with the phonological, phonetic, morphological and syntactic features of this old Croatian dialect and learned a few words. C4 activity called I wanna dance was held in May 2023 in Austria.The activity included language,drama,stage and music workshops.In the language workshop,the students got to know the peculiarities of the Croatian language in Gradišće.In the end, the students prepared and rehearsed a Croatian mini-musical in which they danced, acted and sang in Croatian and English. On all the mobilities, the students collected materials for creating a distinctive dictionary with proverbs and cookbooks with traditional dishes, and they had the opportunity to taste many of them.