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Erasmus Plus

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This morning I was guessing how it could be possible that just two years ago I was studying and living in a small village of my country and right now I’ve been visiting 6 countries all over Europe and I met and still have contacts with more than 200 friends which comes from cities, countrysides and different backgrounds. Guess how it became possible, I’m gonna give you a keyword and that is ERASMUS+. ERASMUS+ is a program funded by EU and since 2014 until 2020 aims to promote education, training, sport and youth mobility. “Education is an important context for intercultural communication, since students and teachers come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and they bring a variety of expectations to the classroom.”
Intercultural learning happens wherever different cultures meet. It’s partly about gaining practical knowledge of the differences and similarities between cultures, but it also goes deeper. It involves discovering how your own cultural identities shape the way you understand and operate in the world, and recognizing culture at work in your everyday experience. Simply immersing yourself in a different culture does not automatically produce intercultural awareness. In reality, it usually depends on a blend of personal motivation and guided learning. Europe big effort to promote intercultural learning and inclusion is reflected in the programme budget: almost 15 billion euros funding thousands of opportunities all around Europe and beyond. Why is it so crucial for the EU to push towards this direction? The reason was totally obvious to Roberto, one of the 4 million people involved in the program until now:” after finishing my first youth exchange in Estonia in a beautiful natural environment and a cozy house together with other 35 people I experienced how to live and collaborate with other youngsters with a very different cultural background. A week full of non-formal activities created to stimulate multicultural understanding, show crucial differences and similarities in order to truly be able to go beyond them”.
As societies become increasingly multicultural and multiethnic there is the need of promoting such diversity. In a sincere effort to establish a true and meaningful intercultural dialogue, many teachers and students are raising the challenge of get in contact with each other, transcending borders, continents, cultures and languages. They encourage research on the students’ own origins and the promotion of exchanges with students of other countries.
What is Intercultural learning for me? It’s something that at least once in life, everyone has to experience. I think it has the capacity to really help you. When I took place at my first project, I heard many times the word “Intercultural learning” which I didn’t heard before. When you go abroad for your first time you don’t know anything also about yourself and about the others, when you are out from your comfort zone it can help you to understand new things, new cultures, to improve and learn skills, to fight prejudices and stereotypes. It’s something that can really change your life for that reason I wanted to ask to some other partecipants what International Learning is for them.
Here the experience of one of the partecipants of “Bridges of inclusion”: “I’m Gigi from Italy and I’m a 28-year-old sports teacher at the highschhol and special needs Instructor, I partecipated to my first project in 2010, Erasmus and in particular the International learning changed my life. How it changed? I started breaking my own barriers, shaping myself with less prejudices and more knowledge about different countries and different cultures. Now my aim is different compared with my aim in 2010 because I partecipate in Erasmus+ projects for inspiring myself and bring my experience to my classroom for my students. So I changed my prospective and that will help my students to change their point of view about other cultures and countries.”
Nevena from Macedonia also shared her experiance from Erasmus+:
“The greatest learning I have from my exchange experience is that we have to separate ourselves from the “I’ and learn to accept the “We”. Soon, you would realize that it is the most beautiful experience in life that you can have in your whole existence.
In school, we have seen that the way people dress, speak, and act reflect a certain culture. With this, we could already say that “our culture is our identity”. Learning cultural differences then, is learning how to accept another’s identity. It is a way of understanding their differences in order for us to learn how to respect one’s individuality and promote peace in the society. Also I learnt that language and culture are definitely not barriers for making friends and building contacts.”
So, intercultural learning helps inculcate values such as empathy, open mindedness, respect, and inclusivity. Empathy is seen in the way one would learn not to judge a person based on their personality, cultural background, race and familial upbringing. It is a way for us to put others in our own shoes and be understanding of how they feel in the society. Open mindedness is then practiced when one have learn not to isolate himself in a single culture or practice.
The multicultural society has inevitably led to the coexistence of people from different worlds and with mentalities, traditions and habits that may diverge significantly from those to which we usually refer. The multicultural reality has not yet been accepted by all and even less valued. So we need to find those roads that can promote the growth of an open mentality able to welcome diversity and to create a real intercultural dimension.

Alessia, Gigi, Nevena e Roberto.

 

Blog

Why we need to promote inclusion?

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That’s how it all started…

I was six years old – second grade.  A new classmate joined us in May, I even remember the exact date: twelfth of May. I was wearing a yellow dress. The teacher asked him to sit next to me and we spent the whole day together. I was showing him around the place, we also played. On the next day, when I walked up the stairs, everyone was staring at me, and that’s how it started. I was bullied for the rest of primary school because I was friends with a Roma kid.

Now, after ten years, I am sixteen years old and I am still having the flashbacks of the bullying. I am just the voice of a young girl, but I have a story and message that must be heard, one which I hope can influence change amongst every generation.
Tonight I am praying in every language, every religion. Tonight Earth, I am talking to you. I am ashamed to even cry, because my tears cannot solve a thing. My being cannot accept how people are being judged by their skin colours, their needs or sexuality. We all come to this world as blank papers, where society helps us create the unique person we are, with different approach of how we see things. Even identical twins are not so identical.

We are living on the era of diversity. Yes, you got it right! It is the biggest treasure we as humans have. We should celebrate our differences, because as they say ‘’two minds are better than one’’, but imagine having twelve, twenty minds who are working together to solve a problem.

Us, here, are the generation of equality. We won’t make the same mistakes of the past and want to make a difference and lead a revolution which will lead to us to a better mixed, inclusive society where everyone, no matter their social background can be given the same opportunities in life as the rest of us. But before we can make this change, we need to make our message clear and need you to question why social inclusion is so vital for a modern society?

For at least once put yourself in the shoes of a disabled person who cannot move around freely. For at least once imagine being judged for loving someone. Discriminating against people for being themselves, for living the life they want goes against the core beliefs of a democracy where all people should be treated equally.

If you feel you should do something, if you think what I’m saying is right, stand up and fight with me!

Dardan Berisha
Luke Henderson
Maria Boboc
Morgan Blake
Rina Kadiri
Sidar Demirbas