Be the change! Self-criticism, empathy, tolerance and respect

All the involved colleagues experience in their everyday lives students who, due to social disadvantage, migration backgrounds, or traumas caused by, for example, fleeing or violence in the family, do not perceive themselves as effective in the learning process. Our need was to counteract this negative development through international cooperation. We wanted to show these children alternatives to the life designs they experience by offering them the opportunity for international networking, traveling, and project-based work.

With the implementation of the project, we aimed to break down prejudices. Firstly, at the level of the faculty, which initially held considerable skepticism towards international cooperation. Secondly, at the level of the students, who, despite mostly having a migration background, showed an incredible amount of prejudice towards "other" cultures. Furthermore, we aimed to specifically address violence in our schools through the implementation of individual measures and compare our models with those of our cooperation partners. The professional exchange should also consider alternative teaching concepts and be reflected upon together with the students. However, the ultimate goal was for the children to perceive themselves as European citizens and experience commonalities across national borders. This should also have a positive impact on individual learning performance as well as on the learning atmosphere in the respective schools in general. Our experiences were intended to be published in the form of modules and presentations.

In total, three mobilities were conducted as part of the project, along with virtual exchanges. The children initially met online, sang for each other, and then wrote Christmas cards. Together, we orchestrated an action in all three schools to demonstrate our commitment to peace. The occasion for this was Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We organized fundraising events and cake sales together and donated the money to an organization. During the mobilities, the children designed the project logo across language barriers, visited the parliament in Strasbourg together, participated in team-building activities, learned about the respective cities and schools, cooked together and exchanged recipes, gave presentations, and performed theater pieces.

The specific outputs included reflection videos from the first mobility in Lahr, focusing on intercultural learning. During the second mobility, there were presentations on creative learning for teachers and theater plays designed and performed by the children themselves. Friendship walls and posters were set up in each school, along with a recipe book containing the favorite recipes of our participants, postcards, newspaper articles about the actions, and many happy faces.