The history of Swabian migrants in Hungary

Click here Swabian migrants in Hungary

Baktay Ervin Gimnázium

Baktay Ervin Gimnázium

In Romania

Video Hungarian students click here in Bucharest

Hungarian delegation in Bucharest

The Hungarian students' presentation about migration in Olga Gudynn International School

The Hungarian delegation with students in Bucharest

TPM 3 Gela, 6th – 8th May 2019

From May 6^th to 8^th, 2019, the last Transnational Project Meeting (TPM 3), took place in Gela, Italy. All the partner delegations reached the meeting spot in optimal conditions and were active parts of the TPM 3.

            The first day was dedicated on the projects results and some conclusions that can be put in the final report. The Portuguese delegation presented the last developments of the Blog: https://erasmuska2aejdfaro.blogspot.com/, and the Hungarian representative, Florin-Cristian Balotescu shared with the group the work that has been done so far on the weebly page: https://fitcornoerasmus.weebly.com/. There was also an official welcome ceremony, where the school principal organized a welcome speech to all the participants. All the delegations attended a conference on the topic: “Focus on welcoming and integration of minorities”.

The second day was dedicated to a trip to Catania and its baroque area. The delegations had the chance to see migration areas in Catania and modern settlement patterns. They visited the fish market, the Cathedral, the Baroque area and had the privilege of a guided visit to the Castello Ursino.

The was some free time for lunch at the town centre and in the afternoon, there was a visit to the Romanian Consulate and a meeting with the Consul of Romania, where some data about migration in Sicily were shared and other important issues on the topic (im)migration.

The final working day was dedicated to the Final Report and Final Project Assessment: evaluation of the project websites, blog and specific outputs.

All the partners have respected the main inquiries of the project and used suitable digital platforms, in order to make results more accessible for all the delegations: https://tizianafinocchiaro3.wixsite.com/flippingup/italy. 

Before finishing, Mr. Martin CHATAGNON has shared with the group a very useful learning platform for future projects “Kid’s Projects”: www.kidsprojects.org.

All the delegations expressed the common vision that their expectations about this project were fully accomplished and thanked the Project Coordinator for all the hard work and guidance throughout the two years. 

Thank you Tiziana Finocchiaro! 

From (im)migrants to citizens: old roots Vs new opportunities. Final TPM

How cannot we feel strong emotions? Click on the link below!
From (im)migrants to citizens: old roots Vs new opportunities. Final TPM

„From (im)migrants to citizens: old roots Vs new opportuninties”: cultural movements inside Europe to keep innovative learning alive.

School Principal Sandra Scicolone
 and
Tiziana Finocchiaro,
Warsaw, May 2018
host the European Parliament

At the end of July 2017 the Italian school was the first to receive the positive answer from its National Agency, regarding the support of the project “From (im)migrants to citizens: old roots Vs new opportuninties”. I still remember I was on the Alps, at that moment, holidaying with my family and up there, at 2500 mt high, I was out of the world. Getting down, approaching the nearest village, my phone beeped. It was a message form our Italian N.A., informing us that the project had received a positive assessment. Too early to start working, but we were required, as the coordinating school, to contact the other partners and check if they were still interested to be part of the team. Not easy to get in touch with everyone, in the summertime, and it took us one week to have a positive feedback from all our partner countries. An official communication from each N.A. would follow. As the other applicant countries did not have any results at that moment, we considered that our main task would be to inform the community where we live about the project, its topic and its aims. Thanks to the very open and co-operative media in Gela, we published an article on La Sicilia and our Principal, Ms Sandra Scicolone gave an interview to the regional press. During the summer the 7 project leaders of the applicant countries, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, exchanged e-mails, trying to find out about each other’s results. On our side, we started planning the different activities, which proved to be not such a hard task as most of the utline had already been set up during the project design.

October brought the final results: all partner schools had been funded and we were ready to start.

The first TPM meeting took place in Faro, Portugal in November 2017 and according to the participants it fulfilled its aims: we agreed on the dates and activities of the project meetings and, even though figures had been approved already, we kept into consideration the possibility to increase the general number of mobilities. Above all, having the opportunity to meet and get to know each other was of high importance regarding the future of the project. This meeting proved to be very important for the implementation of the project: it gave us all the right idea of each school’s engagement in the project and the degree of factuality peculiar to each staff .

The following months were quite busy: the selection of the students who would take part in the next project meetings was slow and difficult due to the high number of students who wanted to participate. Finally students were chosen, according to the 11-15 age range set during the application phase. It was not easy to combine, as sometimes the students interest in the projects fell out of the age range, but teachers, schools and families were very cooperative and, throughout the project life, it was possible to accommodate students in hosting families. In the end, we were able offer to more students than expected the possibility to take part to the mobility activities, also in force of bilateral agreements on mutual exchange. Nevertheless, some students were not included in the mobility plan, for many reasons, but they were able to work at school and from home a the same. It really is very encouraging to see how motivated, enthusiastic our students are, and the way they seem interested in the project topic. Indeed, it is very actual, and it seems to be a hot topic in Europe, but students, schools, communities, show that they really care about welcoming and inclusion as a matter which overcomes national boundaries.

Since that first communication, received up there, on the Alps, almost two years have elapsed, and project meetings have been spaced out by on-line and on-site activities. Most of the educational programme has been centred on peer-to-peer learning and on the importance of innovative approaches to increase motivation to work and reduce early school leaving. That is why all students and teachers were involved in a new way of working: no more paper posters and paper work, but huge, massive interest on technology, shared documents, digital outputs - all this, interwoven with the project fil-rouge of (im)migration and welcoming. I have learnt so much, during these past years. Not only about human mobilities, but above all about people, and habits and the fact that, beyond borders, beyond nationalities, we all have the same strong sense of duty and respect for our work as teachers and educators. Projects make it possible for European teachers to meet and work together, up to us to make it possible for the future to work on Erasmus+ activities and have the same, positive results in terms of learnings and outputs.

To keep the metaphor alive, we are on our way to the end. That not a real end, though. The project is nearly over, but we if look back at these past two years we can guess that the project impact has been very strong in each school: we have learnt to read and write according to the new language of technology, but we have also learnt to refine our way of listening to the others: welcoming is not only about accepting foreign people in our home town and in our school, it is mainly about accepting and integrating diversity as “Borders aren’t walls! Borders are doors to be opened!”.

Tiziana Finocchiaro

Scuola Secondaria di primo grado

Ettore Romagnoli – Gela (IT)