Regional partnerships for intercultural exchange

Final conference, Mostar March 30- April 2

The European Wergeland Centre

Resource Centre on Education for Human Rights (HRE), Intercultural Understanding (ICE), Democratic Citizenship (EDC) in 2009

Mandate: to bridge the gap between policy, research and educational practice, and to work towards and with the grass root level

Target groups: education professionals from all the 47 member states and neighbouring countries

Co-operation with a broad range of stakeholders including local partners (e.g. NGOs, local authorities, universities)

Council of Europe Recommendations

Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights

Education, 2010

Democratic School Governance

White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, 2008

Interculturality; different ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds, exchange of views

Mutual understanding and respect

Main action line: from policy to practice

Capacity building for educational professionals based on a blended

learning approach

Dissemination of information, educational materials, project

outcomes and good practices

Research & development (e.g. evaluation)

Summer Academy – Democracy at School

• Co-operation: Polish education authorities, CoE and the EWC

• Education professionals / local community representatives learn how to work on education for human rights and democratic citizenship

• Participants: Teams of head teacher, teacher and local NGO/ parents’ representative from the same school/ local community

• Countries: Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway

• One week training course and online follow-up

Concept: A whole school approachMultiple levels of change addressed:

- Individual: knowledge, attitudes, skills- Classroom: classroom climate, communication, inclusion of minorities- School: school culture, leadership style, level of participation- Local community: potential partners, active citizens in a diverse community

• Outcome: Drafting of an action plan, based on the particular situation/

challenges, including future steps

• Online follow-up: team contacts, teams report on action plan implementation, trainer support, exchange their experiences, materials available.

• Feedback from 2010: improvements in 2011 0123456

For 2011:- Interest from other countries including Balkan region

• Potentials:

- Concrete activity starting with participant’s experiences

- Stenghten co-operation between schools – local actors in Europe

- Model adaptable to other regions/countries

• Challenges:

- Online follow-up: Use of ICT to support action on local level

Dissemination of information & resources

• EWC web site offers several online services

EWC online library:

•Teaching tools, literature, reports and surveys•All resources are free of charge •Several languages (Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Hungarian) •Comprehensive information: items, links, articles

Thank you for your attention!

www.theewc.org