PERFECT: first in-presence meeting
At the end of April, the partnership of the Erasmus+ project PERform and sHarE loCal hisTories (PERFECT) had the opportunity to attend its first in-presence meeting.
The need of changing learning strategies and reinforcing teachers’ competences has been the starting point of the project, which focuses on increasing the awareness of needs at the whole school level. Indeed, the aim of PERFECT is to boost the innovation and quality of secondary school through new teaching and learning methods on cultural production and intercultural exchange.
From 26th to 28th April, the European Design Workshop together with the first Transnational Project Meeting was hosted by the project coordinator, the Lucatelli School, in Tolentino (Italy). During the workshop, the partnership discussed the common vision of the project’s results and engaged in creative working sessions. The last day was then addressed to discuss how to implement an inclusive approach in the project development, collecting the experiences from the partners’ countries.
The Workshop represented the first in-presence activity of the project PERFECT and resulted in a fruitful collaboration among schools, and the other partners, which started conceiving the five cultural products by sharing experiences, suggestions and inputs.
We are delighted to share with you upcoming developments!
CITIZED & Peace games’ Transnational Project Meetings in Lyon
During the first week of April, the project CITIZED and the project Peace Games have found synergies in Lyon, where partners of both projects gathered for the respective Transnational Project Meetings and for the Peace Games Multiplier Event.
The Transnational Project Meeting of CITIZED took place on 4th– 5th April. Representatives of the entire partnership were present: the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL), the Fondation des Régions Européennes puor la Recherche, l’Education, et la Formation (FREREF), the Organising Bureau of European School Student Union (OBESSU); the Ministry for Education and Employment (MFED) of Malta; the “Zentrum POLIS”; the Université Côte d’Azur (UCA) and Land der Menschen (LdM). The partners discussed, among others, the final phase of the development of the Teachers’ Competences Framework to Implement Citizenship Education and conducted a workshop to progress on the Whole School Approach Support Toolkit.
On the 6th of April, the Fondation des Régions Européennes pour la Recherche, l’Education, et la Formation (FREREF) hosted the Multiplier Event “Building peace: playful and citizenship education”. CITIZED and PEACE GAMES partners, together with relevant local stakeholders, participated in this event, which represented a great occasion to interconnect the projects and to get insights and suggestions from external points of view.
On April 7th, the Transnational Project Meeting of Peace Games took place, hosted by FREREF with the participation of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL), the Liceo Statale G.D. Cassini (Sanremo), the Ministry of Education and Employment of Malta (MEDE), the Asociación cultural Da2 Trucados, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), the FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, the Evangelische Schule Neuruppin and the Université Côte d’Azur (UCA). During the meeting, the partners presented the first results of the piloting phase and discussed the next steps.
2nd Executive Council meeting of the Education Inspiring Peace Laboratory
On June 1st, the Second Meeting of the Executive Council of the Education Inspiring Peace Laboratory (EIP Lab) was held at Villa Ormond, Sanremo (Italy), hosted by the Institute.
The first part of the meeting was devoted to provide participants with an update on the most recent institutional developments concerning the physical seat of the Lab. The session thus progressed with the presentation of the active projects of the EIP Lab (CHILD-UP, CITIZED, Peace Games, Must-A-Lab, PERFECT and Arguing at school) followed by the introduction of the latest project proposals submitted within different EU funding programmes (LICEAL, IN-DEED and GO TALK), stressing the importance of creating new synergies among the different projects.
The last part of the Executive Council meeting was then dedicated to a brainstorming session focused on some practical overarching issues to be addressed by the body. The key points dealt with concerned the Research Capacity, the promotion of Innovative practice, the support for Policy implementation to be provided by the Lab and the open Communication tasks. During the session, an operational plan for the collection of contributions to be integrated into an EIP Lab newsletter and yearly EIP Lab Report of Activities was also designed and approved.
Stay tuned for the Autumn event of the EIP Lab!
OECD webinar: Creating an inclusive school climate for refugee students
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, the OECD will hold a Webinar on 20th June 2022 at 3:00 pm CEST to discuss “Creating an inclusive school climate for refugee students”.
In the wake of the recent war in Ukraine and the consequent movement of millions of displaced persons and refugees in neighbouring countries, the main challenge of maintaining an inclusive education would be to find a way to include school-aged children in the local school system of the European countries.
This webinar will analyse how to help those students in feeling safe, included and able to participate in the schooling mechanisms of their host countries, paying particular attention to the specific challenges refugee students are facing, as well as to the need for support of teachers and the different existing best practices.
Are you interested in this event? Register here.
CHILD-UP Final Conference in Bruxelles
The International Institute of Humanitarian Law organised, in collaboration with the University of Liege and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), the international final conference of the EU-funded project “CHILD-UP”. The conference was held in Brussels (Belgium) on 9.10 June 2022 and focused on “Dialogue for Hybrid Integration – Narratives and promotion of agency of children with migrant background”.
The project “Children Hybrid Integration: Learning Dialogue as a way of Upgrading Policies of Participation – CHILD-UP ” was funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union for a period of 3 years, from January 2019 to June 2022, which was extended of 6 months extension due to the impact of the pandemic. The partnership, coordinated by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), included the Center for the Research, Training and Consultancy at the Protestant University of Dresden (ZFWB gGMBH), the Jagiellonian University of Krakow (UJ), the University of Liege (ULIEGE), the University of Northampton Higher Education Corporation (UON), the Malmoe University (MAU), the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (SeAMK), the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL), the European School Heads Association (ESHA), and the Fondation des Régions Européennes pour la Recherche, l’Éducation et la Formation (FREREF). The project researched the social conditions and the degree of migrant children’s integration in 7 selected EU countries through social participation, taking into primary account gender differences, legal status and age groups, with the final aim of proposing an innovative approach to understanding and transforming their social condition through the agency.
The conference was held in Brussels over two days, with the contribution of 41 speakers who discussed, within different thematic sessions, both the research results and the policy-related outcomes of the project.
The welcome addresses – delivered by Claudio Baraldi from UNIMORE (project coordinator), Bernard De Vos, representing the Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, and Marco Martinello, from the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies of the University of Liege – were followed by the presentation of the project results by the representatives of the different research partners of the consortium, namely Claudio Baraldi and Sara Amadasi (UNIMORE), Shannon Damery, (CEDEM, University of Liege), Aino Alaverdyan (Seinäjoki University of Applied Scienze, SeAMK), Justyna Struzik (Jagiellonian University in Krakow), and Federico Farini (University of Northampton UON).
Professor Adrian Holliday, among the most distinguished international experts in the field of applied linguistics and intercultural education, delivered a keynote speech on “The importance of recovering hybrid realities”, followed by three interactive parallel sessions on Research, Practices and Policy-making, aimed at boosting new ideas and exchanging the perspectives of different categories of relevant stakeholders in the field of the integration of migrant children in the European educational systems.
The second day of the conference was devoted to a hackathon session coordinated by the IIHL, ESHA and FREREF, whose results were then elaborated by a final “Ideas Forum” which involved representatives of institutions and organisations active in the field of education, including the DG Education and Culture of the European Commission, the UNHCR Division of Resilience and Solutions, the City of London Corporation, the Lifelong Learning Platform, and SINGA France
If you are interested in the project and its results, please visit the CHILD-UP website here and consult the outcomes: reports, training materials, digital archives and much more tools are available!
CITIZED – Transnational Project Meeting
On 2nd and 3rd June 2022, the transnational meeting of the “Policy implementation support and teacher empowerment for CITIZenship Education – CITIZED” project was held in Vienna, hosted by polis – The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools.
The partners of the project particularly discussed the final phase of the development of the CITIZED Toolkit, addressed not only to School Governance Bodies, Teachers and Students, but also to Teachers’ Trainers, Communities around schools and Parents. The toolkit will be soon made available, so stay tuned!
A session focused on the first results of the collection of the teachers’ training questionnaires also took place. Many teachers in the different countries involved in the project were (and still are) indeed invited to fill in dedicated questionnaires and share their experiences and ideas on the teaching of citizenship education at this link!
The transnational project meeting represented an enriching opportunity for the smooth development of CITIZED, allowing a deep exchange of knowledge between all partners.
Are you interested in the CITIZED project? Read more here.
CALL TO 2022 FREREF Day: The regions and Europe in support of transitions
On the occasion of the 2022 Edition of the FREREF Day, we are pleased to invite you to two different events by the end of May.
The first one is an online Side event that will be held on 23rd May from 10.30 to 12.30 by the Special Interest Group to discuss about “Policy initiatives to make school an inclusive learning environment”.
Since Fondation des Régions Européennes pour la Recherche, l’Education, et la Formation (FREREF) has been involved in the development of the CHILD-UP project for three years, this event is an opportunity to exchange about what should be done to make schools an inclusive learning environment based on the findings of the project and on the experience in the field of inclusion, education or research. In the Special Interest Group discussion, CHILD-UP would constitute the starting point of the debate. If you are interested in attending the event you can register here and find the full programme at the following link.
The second event is a two half-days session that will be held on 24th and 25th of May in Brussels to celebrate the FREREF Day on “The regions and Europe in support of transitions”. The workshop will discuss with territorial and European stakeholders the main crucial aspects of transitions with a focus on digital transformation, mobility and personal transitions driven by a sustainable society.
The registration to the event is available here.
Have a look at the agenda!
CHILD-UP National Conference on Dialogue for Hybrid Integration
On 26th May 2022 we are pleased to invite you to the Italian final conference of the CHILD UP project on dialogue for hybrid integration: Narratives and the promotion of agency of children of migrant origin at the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE).
This meeting aims to present the main results of the research conducted in Italy and the impact the project may have on different educational practices in the field of research and policy.
The conference will be held in Italian and it will take place at the University of Modena in Largo Sant’Eufemia 19 in Aula B06 from 9.00 am to 5.30 pm CEST. The participation in the seminar is free of charge but registration is compulsory for reasons of room capacity. Therefore, if interested we invite you to register at the following link.
The full programme is available here.
MUST-a-Lab: First transnational project meeting
On 9th and 10th May 2022, the first transnational project meeting of the MUST-a-Lab project took place in Modena (Italy), hosted by the Municipality of Modena in the historical city hall for two fruitful working days.
The MUlti-STakeholder Labs for migrants and stakeholders: MUST-a-Lab project, launched in January 2022, aims at creating a systemic and long-term involvement of migrants and asylum seekers in six European municipalities through the establishment of Policy Labs. In this context, different types of local stakeholders – e.g., policy stakeholders, grassroots stakeholders, and migrant stakeholders – are brought together to discuss and improve existing local policies and integration strategies.
The project, co-funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the European Commission, is implemented by a European partnership coordinated by the City of Mechelen (Belgium) and involving, along with the Sanremo Institute, the City of Modena (Italy), the City of Fuenlabrada (Spain), the Public Benefit Organization of the Municipality of Livadia (K.E.DH.L.) (Greece), the District Council of the 7th District of Vienna (BV 7) (Austria), the City of Pont-de-Claix (France), the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) (Italy), Karel de Grote Hogeschool (Belgium) and the Fondation des Régions Européennes pour la Recherche, l’Education, et la Formation (FREREF)(France). During its meeting in Modena, the partnership discussed the activities carried out in the first five months of project implementation and started to organise the preparatory activities for the establishment of the Policy Labs, to be officially established and developed in the second year (2023). The MUST-a-Lab partners will be meeting again for a second on-site project meeting in Spain in November, this time hosted by the municipality of Fuenlabrada.
Europe Day – celebrating 72 years of peace and unity in Europe
Five years after the end of the Second World War, European governments, hoping to recover from the devastating consequences of the war, came up with the first specific plan for the creation of a European community.
On 9thMay 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, in his visionary speech, proposed the creation of the ambitius plan to secure long-term peace in post-war Europe, which called for the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community one year later. In this way, member states would pool production of these raw materials in order to avoid future wars.
Robert Schuman’s visionary speech is commemorated every year on Europe Day, the 9th of May, as the anniversary of the ‘Schuman Declaration‘ and the beginning of what is now the European Union.
The European Day is a call for the renewal of the democracy among the European states about the war in Ukraine and also a call to remember that 2022 is officially the European Year of Youth, which aims to foster democratic awareness and engagement among young people. Promoting the importance of the voice of youth together with an inclusive citizenship education will give young people the opportunity to shape their future. In this respect, the Education Inspiring Peace Laboratory aims to promote democratic citizenship and the integration of all children into the european education systems.
On this occasion, after months of intense deliberations, the final Conference on the Future of Europe was held in Strasbourg, presenting a report on the final outcome including 49 proposals to the three EU institutions. This event constituted an unprecedented experience of transnational deliberative democracy as well as its historical importance in the context of global crisis and worldwide conflicts. The video of the conference is available at the following link.
Celebrating Europe day means continuing to honour the peace achieved as a result of the decades-long collective effort, defined by John Hume as the best example in the history of conflict resolution.
Happy Europe Day to everyone!
