Building Bridges is a KA219 Erasmus+ Project carried out by a partnership of six European Schools. The initial idea of this project was agreed at the contact seminar “Languages” celebrated in Ljubljana in June 2016.
The most important priorities of this project are:
- Social inclusion
- Open and innovative practices in a digital era
The context and the ideological background of the project is the current European situation involving refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. The refugees’ crisis in Europe is a mere reflection of the problems that each single school has nowadays regarding social inclusion. One of the main goals of this project is to develop strategies and methodologies for inclusive education, integration of foreign students in our schools and to widespread amongst all our students the right and idea of equality.
Click on the link to know about our OBJECTIVES.
There is no other way in which this project could be carried out if not transnationally because each single partner adds a different reality regarding social inclusion. The situation in terms of refugee asylum is different in each country. These are our needs and target groups that add extra value to our project:
Do you want to know about THE PARTNERS?
Austria hosts a lot of Balkan migrants who fled after the Balkan war in the nineties. Since the war in Syria and the great number of refugees trying to reach Europe the situation has changed. The whole community has been asked to host the newcomers and many villages built homes to give them shelter. In our partner school they’ve got the chance to educate one refugee child.
Germany hosts about 75% of students with a Turkish immigration background. They have experience in refugee classes for 10 years, the latest with 5 refugee classes. A lot of the students with an immigration background don´t come out of their local area except their home country and live within their own social community in the town. They are not really integrated and open-minded to other cultures, religion and thinking. So they would like to handle with the upcoming xenophobia.
Poland has some Asian immigrants but can add an important view to our project because Polish people migrate to various countries in Europe. They all need to exchange ideas, maintain open mindedness so that they know what to expect when they become immigrants in western Europe. Polish people need to learn how to build bridges when they are newcomers, they need to learn how to be accepted and how to mingle in society.
Slovenia´s immigrants usually come from Albania or Kosovo. They don´t have enough skills and strategies on how to deal with foreigners in general although the school is bilingual. Slovenia´s need is to be able to learn through partners what real multiculturalism is and how to deal with people with a generally different background in a tolerant and open way. School is located in a border region close to 2 national borders and live within a mixture of all 3 cultures. Slovenia´s main objective is to teach their students that differences can also be positive and it does not mean you need to forget your own heritage.
Spain has mainly Muslim immigration coming from Africa but also people from Poland and Romania. Communities are quite gregarious and difficult to get mixed with students from other nationalities. That’s why we wanted to confront xenophobia from our school.
Sweden has mainly Muslim immigration coming from Somalia, Syria and Iraq. Their principal objective is to know how students with a refugee background feel and experience their new situations. Our project can help their students combat xenophobia, maintain acceptance and remain open-minded towards people from different cultures.
