No more war!

<< Background >>Both countries: Poland and Greece were severely affected during World War II. Also in each of the countries involved in the project, many war refugees lived. There was also a war going on behind Polish borders. Teachers in each of the schools were aware that it is important to know the past and also work now to never let it happen again. Therefore, we have agreed on the need to make the young generation more aware of how awful the war could be. We have decided to take some actions to show the students that each war starts in people's heads and that it is up to us what we do with those thoughts. Also, we have noticed that students have little communication skills. They use words without thinking that they might hurt other people. What's more, in our countries, we still had war refugees and we decided that it was important to know what their habits, traditions and dishes are. When you do not know something, you start being afraid of it, you cannot function properly. Therefore, we have decided to help the young generation learn the refugee dishes and traditions, as they became part of our everyday life. We were meeting them at school, on the bus or in the shops. Those were the reasons to work on those issues together.<< Objectives >>When we were writing the project, we decided on three main objectives. Firstly, we planned to let the students learn about military conflicts in our countries. Secondly, we planned to get the students to know the customs, traditions and dishes of the immigrants. And thirdly, we wanted to offer the students tools for peaceful communication. While meeting the first objective, we planned to show what behaviour leads to starting a war. We also wanted to show the younger generation the cruelty of war, that it always leads to the death of innocent people and that the trauma of living in war times stays for many years after it is over. We also planned to learn about the dishes and traditions of war refugees in our countries. When we meet together, it is good that we know something about ourselves and then we are not afraid of one another. We also realised that working with young people, it is very important to offer the students a proper example of how to address other people with respect. We planned to work with the students on developing a peaceful language. We know that words might hurt like a bullet, therefore we wanted to teach the students how to communicate with others without hurting them consciously. Build bridges in our heads.<< Implementation >>The activities that we did during our project went according to the activities written in the application form. We have started by informing the local school communities. In the first months, we did all the necessary things to sign the agreement with Polish NA and also prepared the agreement to be signed with the partner school in Greece. We have discussed the details so that both schools were satisfied. Then we prepared and completed the initial Google Form for the students and for the teachers. Then we announced the competition for the project Logo. We did voting and we had our Logo. We moved on to learning about military conflicts in our countries. We did weekly meetings in our schools so that the students could learn what the reasons for WWII were in our countries and what effects it had on our nations. We organised trips to places that were connected with WWII. We also did lessons on peaceful communication for different grades. They were run by pedagogy staff in our schools. Also, we had some workshops with war refugees and with people who immigrated to our countries to find safe places to live. About all our actions, we wrote on our school websites, and we also had our project website on Facebook. << Results >>We realise that people's memory is sometimes not so strong, therefore we prepared some materials during the project activities. Each school has prepared an e-book on www.bookcreator.com about military conflicts and places devoted to them. We uploaded photos, films and stories there from our trips and workshops. Each school has also prepared an e-book with lesson plans on communication without aggression. And we also have prepared presentations telling about the dishes and traditions of the refugees and immigrants staying in our countries. All those materials are uploaded on the Erasmus+ Project Result Platform. At the end of the project activities, we did a final form for the students and the teachers. They show that students' knowledge concerning military conflicts has grown by over 30%. They know different activities that help them to communicate without aggression. They also had the chance to learn about the traditions and customs of the refugees. Besides that, they have learned how to work in a group, they realised how important it is to do the tasks on time. They also have started friendships that might last for many years. Teachers in each school have materials for their lessons so that they can use them in the future.