What are the existing challenges in the integration of migrant children at educational, social and cultural level in Italy and Greece?
In the framework on the European project ArtsTogether, the project’s partners have worked during the first 6 months to a Research and Need Analysis assessment, based on qualitative and quantitative interviews addressed to three different target groups:
- Social organisations representatives (NGOs, cultural mediators, social workers and relevant staff)
- Public organisations representatives (teachers, educators, local authorities, ministry officials etc.)
- Migrant parents or representatives of migrant communities.
The identification of existing barriers to the integration of migrant children is the fundamental starting step in order to build an effective strategy of intervention.
ArtsTogether aims to build this intervention upon the creation of a curriculum based on artistic activities and collaborative approaches that will be used in order to equip teachers for:
- dealing with diversity,
- fostering mutual understanding and respect among their students,
- improve the educational performance of migrant students.
At this scope, alongside this research, the partners have worked on the identification and collection of best practices as examples of use of arts education for social integration of migrant children at schools across Europe and abroad, to provide practical advice on the means, tools and activities that have been used to achieve this goal.
At the end of this first phase, partners met in Innsbruck, Austria, from the 25th to the 27th of June 2018, in order to share and discuss about the results of the Research, Need Analysis and Best Practices collection.
During the 3-days meeting, partners had also the opportunity to participate to a Capacity Building Workshop, visiting Kindervilla, a multilingual kindergarten, where they had a first-hand experience of integration practices of migrant children through artistic expression. Through interaction with both teachers and children, partners got inspired and motivated to work on the next phase of the Project, during which the ArtsTogether curriculum will be developed and pilot tested.
ArtsTogether – Integrating migrant children at schools through artistic expression is funded by the European Commision’s programme AMIF (Asilum, Migration and Integration Fund).
The project consortium is composed by 10 organisations:
- Coordinator: University of Peloponnese (Greece);
- Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (Italy);
- Bath Spa University (United Kingdom);
- Four Elements (Greece);
- HIGGS – Higher Incubator Giving Growth & Sustainability (Greece);
- ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth (Greece);
- Fondazione Hallgarten-Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca (Italy);
- Kindervilla (Austria);
- Mediter – Reseau Euro-Mediterraneen Pour La Cooperation A.I.S.B.I. (Belgium);
- CSC – Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy).
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For further information about the project, contact: antonella.alessi@danilodolci.org.