MAKING OUR SCHOOLS A BETTER SPACE an ERASMUS+ strategic partnership for inclusiveness.
With its last meeting, held on 23 and 24 February 2023 in Foggia (Italy), the Erasmus+ strategic partnership project Making our schools a better place was officially closed, which saw three European educational institutions work together, all operating in the sector of permanent training of adults, the CPFPA of Lliria (Spain), the CPIA 1 Foggia (Italy) and the EKATH of Igoumenitsa (Greece).
For the good progress of the project, the responsibilities between the partners have been outlined as follows: the Spanish partner acted as guide and coordinator of the project, also taking care of the financial aspect; the Italian partner was in charge of disseminating the results of the project through the creation of a dedicated FB page and website, as well as a multilingual magazine, in which to bring together the documentation of the most significant activities; and the Greek partner, on the other hand, took care of the monitoring and evaluation of the project; each with the common function of organizing educational actions within their own specificity to implement the project and experience inclusiveness and emancipation.
As intended by the creators, the project aimed to develop good educational practices among its adult students through collaboration and comparison, focusing in particular on two main aspects: the inclusion of migrants of different religious and cultural backgrounds and the inclusion (help for the emancipation) of women.
These two horizontal priorities of the Erasmus+ program have been chosen for a number of reasons. The schools involved have the same background; are located in areas with a high percentage of people at risk; they face problems of social inclusion and, moreover, they carry out their training in highly multicultural environments, i.e. in small urban areas, but populated by an ever increasing number of immigrants.
Working in synergy on common themes in environments full of prejudices and intolerance among the local population was not easy, however this was a source of not only cultural and linguistic enrichment, but also and above all of active citizenship. We are convinced that, if neglected, such an action would risk contributing to the creation of ghettos and the rise of racist and xenophobic movements. In this scenario, migrant women have the worst, as they represent the weakest groups and tend to occupy the lowest positions in society. For them, all this can lead to double discrimination, both ethnic and gender.
The main objective underlying this transnational collaboration project was, therefore, to help facilitate the inclusion of groups attending the training courses of the three schools involved. Through the numerous common activities and openness to their own territory, all people, regardless of gender or ethnic, religious or cultural background, with a view to inclusiveness, have been put in a position to make themselves known by the environment in which they live, and to favor with this action reflection and the fall of prejudice.
Furthermore, the two mobilities with teachers and students, one at the EKATH school of Igoumenitsa (Greece) and the other at the CPIA of Foggia (Italy) have encouraged the sharing of the work carried out, the comparison of different methodologies and systems, the peer learning and the growth of the sense of active European citizenship.
