Inclusion gets viral

"<< Background >>""Inclusion Goes Viral"" envisioned the imperative integration of students from diverse social backgrounds into a cultural environment. Its goal was to assimilate them into European heritage by exploring their roots and fostering the creation of their unique identity through innovative tools like videos. The partner countries involved in the project were Romania, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Croatia. The project facilitate idea was to explore our origins through innovative approaches, fostering participants' creativity in the process. The needs of the partners were: promoting the cultural development of students to cultivate a positive attitude toward national and European values; to cultivate a European sense of belonging through culturally and educationally significant initiatives; to identify common tools for exploring shared origins, history and culture; to advocate for the cultural heritage of European values; to foster an anti-discriminatory attitude against race, gender, age, ability, class, sexuality, language, and religion; to nurture a sense of belonging to an open, democratic, and sustainable society; to promote social inclusion for disadvantaged groups and also to strengthen key citizenship competencies.<< Objectives >>The project's objective was to cultivate students' awareness of the cultural richness within the European Union, uniting nations through shared values such as respect for human rights, dignity, freedom, equality, democracy, and the rights of minority groups. Additionally, the initiative aimed to seamlessly integrate literature, arts, geography, and history into transdisciplinary activities beyond the conventional classroom setting. The envisioned accomplishments included:1.Assisting 25 socially disadvantaged students from four European countries, with limited access to culture, in finding their equilibrium for successful integration into a multicultural society over the two years of implementation.2.Integrating literature, arts, geography, and history into transdisciplinary activities outside the classroom for 100 students from each partnering country.3.Finding a new hobby by engaging a target group of 100 students in the study of writing effective poems or creating works of art.4.Strengthening key competences and citizenship, especially in the areas of learning to learn, design, collaboration, and active participation, for 100 students from each partner country over the two years of the partnership, also in the future<< Implementation >>To accomplish the project's objectives, we implemented five distinct types of activities:- Local Activities: These activities involved both students and teachers, focusing on the preparation of LTTAs (TikTok's for the Learning, Teaching, and Training Activities), linguistic preparation, as well as dissemination events/ articles.- Virtual Collaboration Activities: Team meetings were organised virtually every 2 months or more often before a LTTA, in order to discuss details, program, activities, hotels suggestions for accommodate students and accompanying teachers, local transportation and other topics; the results from all activities were shared on Twinspace, in the collaborative digital space created for this purpose.LTTAs organised, according to the application form:C1. Sharing Traditions - a Way to Inclusion (October 2022, Craiova, Romania):Objectives included raising awareness of one's culture, preventing school dropout through creativity, promoting and consolidating cultural parameters, and fostering active citizenship and intercultural dialogue.C2. Country Map Craft (November 2022, San Antonio de Benagéber, Spain):Focused on increasing awareness of the environment, exploring natural landscapes, and utilising natural resources to create artworks. Because this partner could not host the groups when we intended to do this initially, due to other postponed projects in the pandemic, and the all the partners agreed, we switched these 2 mobilities: first the students and teachers went to Spain and only next year to Croatia. Despite all these changes, the achievement of the objectives was not prevented., thanks to the good communication and understanding among partners. We decided everything during the TPM.C3. Let’s make History come alive (March 2023, Città di Castello, Italy):Aims were to raise awareness of historical backgrounds, understand the past as a means to comprehend the present and future, and use historical names for self-discovery.C4. Let's becreative! (May 2023, Dugo Selo, Croatia):Objectives included recognizing creative potential, enhancing social skills like cooperation and communication, developing teamwork, and improving education through creativity.C5. Let’s bring literature to life (September 2023, Paredes, Portugal):Aimed to explore national literature for self-discovery, encourage communication and cooperation, build team spirit, and promote independence and self-awareness.Other activities that we considered very important for our project:- Dissemination results activities and Follow-up: This involved sharing the outcomes of the project and subsequent actions taken. We were all involved in our own organisation and we did materials together during the LTTAs.- Management Activities: Included monitoring and evaluation activities to ensure the progress of the project. The methodology employed encouraged students to create authentic materials in a playful and secure environment, combining face-to-face and online interactions. Multicultural teamwork and peer learning were emphasized, enabling students to achieve a profound self-discovery of their identities and engage in activities promoting social inclusion.<< Results >>Our students, before the Learning, Teaching, and Training Activities (LTTAs), created five TikToks per country, according to the theme of each LTTA, by a scenario created exclusively by the students, their voices, their acting... These videos served as a dynamic medium for sharing their cultural insights, history, literature, and more, while also facilitating mutual learning. Throughout the LTTAs, students were organized into multicultural teams, with each team producing a daily video to exchange their newfound knowledge and experiences. These videos are like a dynamic report of each day in many versions, according to each group experience.Additionally, a noticeable outcome of the project is the creation of a dedicated project website - created by the Spanish partner, ant this website is promoted on all the partners' websites."