We started the project activities because it was our intention to open the school to the European cultural space so that every teacher and every student would have the opportunity to network and cooperate with partners from European countries. We wanted to provide professionals with access to quality professional training and job shadowing, which link the development of personal and professional competences affecting both individual and collective responsibility. By incorporating the acquired innovative work methods and learning approaches, we would like to improve the quality of education and mutual cooperation of all participants in the school space. Gaining experience in working with children from vulnerable groups, especially immigrant students, was of utmost importance to us. We wanted to increase interest in implementing activities to develop quality coexistence and intercultural dialogue, gaining personal breadth, influencing the all-round motivation and creativity of teaching staff and students, inspiring the use of various teaching tools, skills and methods and developing active citizenship on a concrete level. Our intention was to emphasize the development of key competences for lifelong learning and draw attention to the importance of maintaining a healthy environment and interpersonal relationships. As individuals and as a group we wanted to overcome our reservations and test ourselves in less known areas such as foreign languages, digitalization and the organization of international projects and individual mobilities.
Our school is located in a multicultural environment. We live in a bilingual area close to the Italian and Croatian borders. Many local people including pupils, parents and colleagues come from other countries and from other cultural backgrounds. Such an environment is our common wealth that needs to be nurtured. After three decades of gaining experience and working in the field of education for intercultural learning, learning about positive values, life-long learning, working in the direction of sustainable development, taking care of natural and cultural environment and thus learning about and preserving our common European heritage we felt that we needed a new startup. Living in a place as special as our hometown we feel the need of networking and looking for new creative ideas to preserve cultural diversity and establish quality coexistence. We wanted to make a step forward. Taking part in projects represented an opportunity to grow and make progress. We decided to look for adequate seminars in terms of content and partner organizations operating under similar circumstances and with a vision similar to ours. The vision of integration, mutual respect and common growth, a vision of internationalization of our school.