OUR OBJECTIVES

"Bridges over opened minds"

Erasmus + program: "Bridges over opened minds", is a project that stands for an opening towards tolerance and the awareness of the rewarding possibilities that cultural miscegenation brings in any culture.

On a large scale, this European Erasmus+ project undertakes the difficult work of trying to cope with a large spectrum of needs of minority students, foreigner students, immigrant and disadvantaged students and their families on one hand and the local people on the other. The main objective is to bring people together, combine their needs and find solutions, accept one another and involve all parts in active participation in the society by engaging them in collaborative activities.
We also aim to facilitate the inclusion of these different students and their families in the school life and in the community as well.

Inclusion

The project "Bridges over open minds" was attended by students, teachers and parents of students, administrative and service employees, as well as a representative of the school authorities, representatives of the Teachers' Training Center and teachers from other schools. Project activities were correlated with the core curriculum. They were carried out during compulsory classes and extracurricular activities. The content of the project was included in the school's educational and preventive program. Among others, these were education for values with particular emphasis on national identity, issues of diversity, tolerance, respect and understanding, and building a civil society. Thus, the scope of project activities was extended to all students of the school, from the first to the eighth grade. The topics implemented by all the students at school were: Children's Rights, Human Rights, World Day of Peace, World Literacy Day, World Anti-Poverty Day, International Earth Day.

Tolerance

The main goal was to bring the people together, accept one another and involve all parts in actively participating by engaging them in collaborative activities. The main work was to show the beauty of difference and develop the acceptance and respect of our students. We wanted to enhance European values and European education. Our school was to become the field where all these different students would feel the security of being included in everyday life in all aspects. Our aims were a deeper understanding of the diversity, broadening the knowledge base, improving communication and strengthening interpersonal, intercultural, and social skills, improving tolerance, acceptance of the different, and increasing creativity and innovation, through cooperation and learning by doing.

Transgression of stereotypes

We created cross-curricular activities that help students develop key competences, but above all soft skills, thanks to which our students will cope in the future in a globalized world, and above all in the European and global labor market. The key skills in our project were: cooperation in a group, adapting to the changing reality (pandemic time and the implementation of project tasks), resistance to stress (communication in English, learning in an international group, speaking in front of the camera), creativity and ability of making decisions, organizing work (also when working remotely) as well as developing personal culture by teaching children tolerance, respect, acceptance of diversity and drawing positive experiences from it. Working in an international group motivated our students to develop their communication skills in English, and encouraged them to learn the languages of the partner schools. The intellectually and culturally diverse groups of students built mutual relationships, overcame language barriers and prejudices which allowed them to experience success at school on an equal footing with no importance on their status in the peer group, at school, and regardless of academic performance. They also developed the positive attitude towards other people and learned how to work out compromises.