THE MORE VARIETY, THE BETTER SOCIETY

Project Summary:

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The concept of immigration is as old as human history. As a term, it is the act of someone who travels to a different country for the purpose of living there permanently. In this process, immigrants or more specifically, refugees have two alternatives: To adapt to society, or to lead a life away from it. The factors that cause immigration are based on serious reasons such as social, political, or economical needs. Especially refugees who are the victims of war migrate to the European countries in order to find a safer and liveable place for their families. As it is known, because of the civil war, economic crisis, poverty, and social chaos in various parts of the world, people have to migrate to other countries or take refuge. For example, more than 22 million people, including legal and illegal immigrants (refugees), reside in different parts of European countries according to data released by Eurostat in 2018 (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat).

 

The wave of migration also brings to mind the integration problem resulting from having a different language, culture, and lifestyle. It is inevitable to make the necessary arrangements regarding the integration process of refugees/immigrants and their rights for equal education. Refugee/immigrant family children who are exposed to the new culture and its language other than their native language have difficulty both in taking education and communicating with their peers. In this context, it is important that these children should adapt to the education system and socialize in the school.

Among the main objectives of the "European 2020 Strategy", it has been mentioned that priority will be given to the issues of equality and anti-racist approaches in education, training, and youth projects including intercultural dialogue. Accordingly, it is declared that activities aiming at eliminating inequality, combating discrimination, racism, and violence should be added to the curricula, and also participation and learning performance of disadvantaged students should be taken into consideration at schools. The main objective of this project is to increase awareness of the school community and other stakeholders towards refugee/immigrant students and make them more active in the education process through activities involving social inclusion. Schools, which have an important role in the integration process of these students, have key roles both in individual learning and socialization of the students. Students who come together in the school environment will have the opportunity to create new ideas and to know each other through activities such as academic studies, projects, and sports activities. In the activities, students are expected to use the collaborative and cooperative learning model which will lead to the development of higher-level thinking, communication, self-management, and leadership skills. As stated in the project content, 2 teachers and 5 students from each partner institution will be assigned as participants for each mobility. The students will have a chance to get to know each other with the help of the activities in the mobilities. 6 LTT programs are planned within the scope of the project.

 

In the 1. LTT program, there will be a kick-off meeting, seminars on the perception of minorities, a Web 2.0 tools course, and the introduction of the eTwinning project.

 

The 2. LTT program will consist of a workshop on how to build inter-group relationships, selecting the logo of the project, a festival of world cuisines, a folk tale activity, and a seminar about the problems of immigrants/refugees.

 

In the 3. LTT program, there will be a debate on history and legends, a quiz show related to the traditions and festivities, the celebration of World Refugee Day, and sharing the examples of traditions belonging to different cultures.

 

The 4. LTT program will include activities about traditional children's games, dramas, sports events organized for the social integration of the students.

 

In the 5. LTT program, there will be visiting local settlements where minorities live, doing street interviews, workshops on the features of minorities, and debate about multi-layers of identity.

 

In the 6. and the last LTT program, there will be an activity about a multilingual glossary, the celebration of World Day for Cultural Diversity, a folk dance show, and the exhibition of traditional costumes.

 

Surveys, the project logo, magazines, the project web site, brochures, pictures, videos, and eTwinning documents will be the concrete results of the project. On the online platform, the eTwinning project "Bridging Cultures" will be open to the new partners who will help the project continue in the long term. Erasmus+ corners, the project website, social media accounts, local press, schools' and local authorities' websites will be used as tools to share the news related to the project activities to reach larger groups of people.