Migration - Challenge, Change and Chance

"Migration is one of the most biased topics within the EU. When starting our project ""Migration-Change-Challenge-Chance“ in 2016 Europe was dealing with an increased numbers of refugees. This situation has been challenging ever since. Back then many Europeans and European countries were facing this problem positively. This positive atmosphere has almost completely changed since many European countries are demanding a legal change within the EU when it comes to dealing with refugees. That´s why united actions in terms of finding solutions for the current refugee crisis seems to be unrealistic. The three participating schools from Lübeck (Germany), Kotka (Finland), and Gdansk (Poland) have in common that all of them aim for a degree which is comparable with the A-Levels in the UK. Hence, all of the school teach senior classes. The German school also teaches senior classes which explains the number of 750 students. Approximately 570 students visit the Polish school and the Finish school is visited by 400 students. From the beginning there were differences in terms of experience with this topic. The German school is an officially certified so called “Europe School” and already dealt with similar topics in the past. Back then this happened with Comenius projects instead of Erasmus+. Furthermore, the German school has been offering many projects to help refugees since 2015 and it also teaches students with a migration or refugee background. The Finish school had been trying to engage in this topic but due to the low number of refugees and immigrants in their country and since this has been their first Erasmus+ project, their experience was not high. When it comes to the Polish school it can be said that from the beginning they were aware of the fact that there are negative attitudes of their students in terms of the topic migration. One of the objectives of the application therefore is the stressed situation of having a united EU. Furthermore, the application points out whether if the positive attitude towards immigration and refugees could be held and if the right winged party in Poland would handicap open discussions. During our project these tendencies definitely evolved. All in all, our project wanted to create and establish more tolerance and acceptance especially because of the negative attitude of the Polish school. That´s why we chose activities that not only ensured a theoretical approach of this dispute (e.g. reasons, history, law) but also left space to reflect the very own opinion about migration, e.g. when it comes to the own family history in this context. Therefore, the students created and acted out a play which deals with their own experience about migration. Furthermore, they did voluntary work in refugee aid agencies or studied the legal background of this topic. The outcome has to be assessed differentiated. On the one hand, most of the planed activities could be executed and only the participating students and teachers but also the rest of the schools found out about this project via homepage or newspapers. Even NGOs or local authorities exchanged information with the schools and could benefit from the project. On the other hand, our fear of a change in the political views got true. While our application focused on an intense and open discussion about how to deal, help and integrate refugees in Europe, it got more and more difficult to exchange ideas and opinions about this topic which was caused by the political changes in Poland. Nevertheless, the project shows its benefits and effects since for example students helped out in refugee aid agencies and experienced the difficulties when it comes to dealing with the refugee crisis within the EU on their own."