DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES
The HESTIA project was born from our pupils’ questions about the social situation around the world, with wars happening to specific places and migration waves observed towards the European countries. Our schools include immigrant pupils, nearby schools include refugees, and it is our belief that the educational systems must be reformed towards being more inclusive with socially vulnerable populations.
HESTIA’s main objectives are to:
• provide a preparation to our schools in order to respond to migrants’ inclusion
• raise awareness of the challenges faced by immigrants and refugees
• contribute to the development of policy and good practice exchange regarding migrants’ inclusion.
The project is coordinated by the 6th Primary School of Egaleo, Greece, a suburb of Athens near the refugee hosting structures.
The partnership is completed with Maastricht Graduate School of Governance from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands and 4 primary schools:
GO! Basisschool Schaarbeek Hendrik Conscience in Brussels Belgium,
Istituto Comprensivo Statale “Gianni Rodari” in Palagiano Italy,
Associação Jardim Escola João de Deus in Leiria Portugal, and
Maristes Sants Les Corts Fundació Champagnat in Barcelona Spain.
The schools involved are large, primary schools (some with kindergarten and secondary schools attached), most of which include pupils facing a variety of difficulties (cultural, economical, educational and social). The Maastricht Graduate School of Governance has been selected in the partnership due to its teaching programs in migration studies, and for having years on research and trainings on migration-related issues.
For more information on the project consortium, you may check the Partners page.
The project activities include:
a. 5 collaborative activities implemented by the pupils with the aid of internet tools
b. 45 implementation activities around the following 4 themes: Human Rights, Defining Migration, Migration Stories, Inclusive Exchanges in Culture and Sports
c. 6 dissemination activities, and common dissemination products (website, Facebook page, leaflet, poster, newsletter, e-magazine, HESTIA activity book, press releases, radio/tv broadcasts).
HESTIA project is designed to develop our pupils’ 21st century skills:
-personal skills (knowledge construction, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, digital competences, learning to learn)
-interpersonal skills (communication, collaboration, negotiation, social competences)
-life skills (citizenship, career preparation, resilience, and tolerance).
Our focus is especially on the 4C’s, communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity, but also on tolerance and citizenship as we believe are crucial for the project objectives.
The HESTIA activities are based on the project-based learning methodology; group work and collaboration among pupils will be constant; outputs will be presented by the pupils and shared with their peers in the partner schools; experiential workshops will take place for pupils. The sharing of good practices among partner schools throughout the course of the project is essential to its successful completion. Use of Twinspace platform, web2.0 and other ICT tools will facilitate the activity implementation, pupils’ collaboration and communication. The CLIL methodology will also be applied whenever possible.
Project Expected Results
Important results expected from the project include a change in the educational agenda regarding school inclusion for refugee children. By delivering our proposals to educational authorities and policy makers, we will try to achieve the inclusion of refugee pupils in regular classes. Also, another result will be the operation of a network in the partner countries to exchange good practices among education professionals and human rights organisations concerning the support of migrants in our schools. The successful operation of the network and the wide spreading and acceptance of our proposals manifesto will have a significant impact on how our communities and our schools deal with migrant children.
The expected results targeting the direct participants of the project (pupils, teachers) include attitude changes towards a more tolerant and receptive behaviour, a development in their emotional intelligence skills, an enhancement of their 4C’s skills, an improvement of their ICT and foreign language skills. Especially for the teachers, the empowerment of their intercultural competences through training will be an important result that will impact on the work taking place in our schools, changing our everyday practices and creating an inclusive atmosphere for all. It is also expected to observe parents' attitude changes towards migrants after participating in the activities, thus widening the project impact to the local community.
The potential longer term benefits envisaged from our project are forming receptive communities with tolerant and open-minded citizens, promoting the values of solidarity and respect, creating inclusive schools for all pupils.
"The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein."
