Through telling stories children can learn about own history and the specifics of their culture. The period of childhood is important period of creating self-image, identity, as well as the basis for values and beliefs. Telling stories that highlight the importance of culture, tradition and customs are building high values. It's important for students to listen and share the stories from their own country, as well as the stories of other countries. The objectives we wanted to achieve by implementing the project were: - To increase students' awareness and understanding of different cultures and nationalities. - To reinforce a sense of belonging to Europe and to raise awareness of European common history and values. - To promote empathy and understanding towards individuals from diverse backgrounds. - To reduce prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes towards other nationalities. - To encourage critical thinking of cultural differences and similarities. - To promote positive attitudes towards diversity and multiculturalism. - To encourage the sharing and appreciation of Europe’s cultural heritage as a shared resource. - To underline the importance of caring for and transmitting our shared heritage by storytelling about it.
With this project we wanted to educate students from our 3 counties to promote tolerance towards other nationalities and to teach them how to protect and promote Europe’s cultural heritage, through storytelling about it. The stories are an excellent tool for transmitting the culture, tradition and customs of a nation, and telling stories that highlight the importance of building high values, such as empathy and respect for others. We provided opportunities to students to share stories from their own country and hear the stories of other countries. Through storytelling about own culture in this project, the students learned about own history and the specifics of their culture. Also, exposure to different cultural stories helped them to develop an empathy and appreciation for different perspectives and experiences. We improved cultural awareness among our students and saw that storytelling is a powerful tool for helping them to develop critical thinking skills. We promoted storytelling as cultural heritage and a resource for the future, because we stressed the role of young people in keeping and sharing stories as heritage, tradition and keeping culture alive, according to promoting tolerance, acceptation and multicultural living.