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

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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)

Flavia and Martina: our experience with Erasmus+

Erasmus is a student mobility program of the European Union, aiming to bring together young people and different cultures. We started a project that we did not think could be transformed into such a great experience that marked the end of our journey in the middle school. It was difficult because it lasted two years, but we could make new friends with both Italian students from other classes and foreign students from the partner countries. We had some occasions to work online, to meet them through their work but I would like to talk a bit of out experience in Gela, for the closing project meeting. In this occasion, we welcomed French and Romanian students. We met them the first day in the science lab, we did some ice-breaking activities and played games to get to know each other. Then, we were taken to the Main Hall to attend a conference on the theme of migrations: “Us and the others: welcome, understand and tell”.

The featured speakers at the conference were: Nicolae Chilcos, Oldest Member at the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate in Sicily, who talked about the integration of Romanian community in Sicily which is the biggest group of immigrants in our area; Emanuele Cidonelli, Chief of Communication Department, Advocacy and Fundrising, United Nations Ocha in Niger. He explained clearly the political situation in Niger and the reasons that lead people to escape. Then, we met Stefano Hallam, Cultural Mediator for political refugees. He told about his own experience like political refugees escaped from Egypt during Mubarak dictatorial regime and how was his integration in Italy.

Students showed great interest, attention and involvement about the conference.

On the second day, some students enjoyed a trip to Catania: I didn’t go, but they told us that they especially enjoyed the meeting with the Consul of Romania.

On the third day, in the morning, from 08.00 to 09.00, French and Romanian students attended again the first class at school together with their hosting friends. They took part in the lessons and did some CLIL activities.

After that all the students were gathered in the Main Hall and were involved in 3 Kahoot! games using their phones.

In the first round, we had questions about the project, the Italian students got the second place, the second round was reserved for the foreign students to test their knowledge about Sicily and the third test was about Europe. After, we went to the gym and we played volleyball and we had a lot of fun!

Olga Gudynn International School, Romania at TPM 3 Gela, Italy, 6th-8th of May 2019

So great be take part of the last Transnational Project Meeting from Gela, Italy! Everything was there: project's outputs overview, project's website, plans for dissemination and follow-up, cultural and social inputs. Romanian delegation was happy to paticipate at topic retated encounters with the representatives of Romanian Orthodox Community of Sicily, Romanian Consulate of Gela and Ettore Romagnoli School Community, as well as with specialist in the fields of interculturalism, human relations, administration. The Conference Noi e gli altri: "Accogliere, comprendere, raccontare" was a keen insight to the complex issue of human migration. Watch video and interviews at TV post Today 24!

Many thanks you to all organizers, participants and Erasmus community! Good luck to all with the final reports and national assessments!

With: Father Nicolae Chilcos, Decan of Romanian Orthodox Community in Sicily, Romanian delegation and Mrs. Chilcos, teacher of Romanian Language for the Romania Immigrants community.

Erasmus Students Group and prof. Elisa Tuzzetti

With: Project. coord. Tiziana Finnocchiaro, Mr. Stefano Allam, principal Sandra Scicolone, father Nicolae Chilcos, Mr. Emanuele Cidonelli and prof. Valeria Psaila

My week in Hungary - by Constança Silva

My week in Hungary - by Ana Sofia Nicolau

My week in Hungary - by Matilde Contreiras

A week in Hungary as an Erasmus+ student - by Carolina Prates