Central to cohesive and non-discriminatory education within Europe is the core objective of social inclusion; being undermined by a lack of understanding of conflict-related immigration, wider migration, disability and different ideals – such as tensions created by the Brexit debate. SOLIS is about creating a sense of belonging and a right to be included, whatever the student background, by exploring the nexus of wellbeing, inclusion and diversity to eliminate bullying and reduce early school leavers that continue to be excluded within future employment opportunities – identified in European Commission 2020 strategies for reducing share of early school leavers under 10%, leading to increased employment. The SOLIS project is a whole school approach, to develop a wide-scope e-learning platform with modules addressing core challenges within cultural diversity and discrimination, no matter the reason, helping students increase empathy for their differences and understanding of common ground, through interactive and collaborative activities such as digital storytelling. The second digital output of the project is a mobile-friendly web platform, acting as an online portal to train the teachers to best facilitate the SOLIS modules and activities, with the help of a rich resource of case studies and videos of pilot sessions. The aim of this portal is to create excellence in facilitating, sustaining and growing the project beyond pilot areas. Together these tools work to provide a framework whereby students can, in collaboration, share their story with their peers in a safe and stimulating environment, seeing diversity as positive and ultimately increasing wellbeing of all students. The use of digital storytelling as a tool to facilitate this is still a new and innovative concept in mainstream education and the SOLIS digital tools will project expert guidance on how to facilitate this learning towards the outcomes defined in the project. Helping students reflect on who they are, their values and relationships, and listening to their peers doing the same, strongly supports their development tasks as adolescents, allowing evolution of identity management, handling and building of new relationships and information processing, to be engaged together, to protect common values and enact a positive change in their social network. Promoting empathy, self-awareness and understanding of different cultures, ideals and abilities can eliminate bullying and social exclusion, precursors for not succeeding in education. This early intervention of educators and in particular their application and use of the SOLIS methods, contents and digital tools are designed to ensure the positive and healthy development of their students.
SOLIS had the ambition to accelerate the understanding of cultural diversity among students, in particular the reasons and the lasting impacts, to create greater empathy and to increase understanding of common ground, especially through collaboration and co-creation during the classroom activities co-designed by the project team and the educators involved in the project. SOLIS aimed also to respond to the strategy of reducing early school leavers, by taking a wide-scope view of the challenges of cultural diversity and social inclusion, by being centred on peer learning and sharing through innovative e-learning classroom tutorials utilising participation-focused activities such as Digital Storytelling, as well as deeply investigating the nexus of wellbeing, inclusion and diversity, through researching the current situation in schools of the countries involved in the project, sharing knowledge of learning tools for wellbeing and inclusion. A wide-ranging view of cultural diversity was tackled, with immediate migration being only one reason for cultural diversity – diversities can have existed for a long time, as well as other factors behind social exclusion, such as disability and the impact of Brexit.
8 partner organisations from across Europe came together to collaborate on the SOLIS Project with the ambition to develop tools and approaches that could be applied within school education to support the creation of a sense of belonging and a right to be included, whatever the student background is. The main focus was on exploring the nexus of wellbeing, inclusion and diversity to eliminate bullying and reduce early school leavers. With continued unrest within and beyond Europe, economic pressures and climate change impacts, schools in many immigrant concentrated areas have to adapt to a more culturally diverse student demographic, beset by bullying and early school leavers, impacting on the long-term social inclusion within and outside of school. Reducing early school leavers across Europe is a priority identified in the European Commission 2020 strategies – a complex and multifaceted issue, exacerbated by a migrant influx, both escaping conflict and economic migration. The SOLIS partners were selected among experienced and highly skilled organisations, representing a wide spread of private and public expertise from all corners of Europe, to be able to best respond to the objectives of the project and the diversity of contexts.