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Description
The aim of the project is to comprehensively support teaching staff in providing school students with the right to learn about migration and refugees on the basis of reliable sources and materials. The project is a response to the challenges posed by the refugee crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and the influx of refugees into Poland as a result of the war in Ukraine. For about a year, the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border has been very serious. Violations of human rights and international conventions, daily deportations of people trying to enter Poland and sanctions against people trying to help them are a daily occurrence. Moreover, in February 2022 (after the project started), Russia attacked Ukraine, which was followed by an influx of refugees to Poland unprecedented in the modern history of our country. At the same time, the situation in the education system has become very tense. Proposals by the Ministry of Education and Science to prevent access to schools for human rights organisations have influenced the attitudes of teachers who are afraid to raise issues that are uncomfortable for the government. Teachers often do not have enough knowledge about migration and refugees, so they ask the NGOs for materials and training. Within the project we will develop educational materials to teach about the refugee crisis, interculturalism and migration. Experts in global and antidiscrimination education will prepare a package of materials to be used during lessons and in extracurricular activities. These materials will be presented during three workshops. In addition, we will conduct 20 consultations with people who participated in our workshops and who are now teaching or are about to teach lessons in schools and their peer groups. The materials will be made available on the tea.org.pl website. We will also promote them through social media, newsletter and mailings to organisations working with refugees.
Summary of project results
The project was supposed to be a response to the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border - violations of human rights, violations of international conventions, daily violent deportations (push-backs) of people trying to get to Poland and sanctions against people trying to help others. At the same time, the situation in the education system was very tense. The proposals of the then Ministry of Education to politicize the school and prohibit access to it for human rights organizations, although ultimately not accepted, had a chilling effect on teachers who were afraid to discuss topics that were not in line with the party line of the then government. Even if young people themselves raised refugee issues in the classroom, teachers often had no knowledge in this area, felt insecure, and turned to NGOs asking for materials and training. Among our database of recipients, we heard that this professional group had a great need to respond to these issues at school. Teachers responded eagerly to one-off proposals for educational activities, and friendly non-governmental organizations were looking for educational materials and educational support. We had materials and methodology on the subject of refugees, but these materials were not adequate, they were created for the needs of the migration situation in 2015. They lacked any reference to the events that took place on the Polish border and not, as before, thousands of kilometers from Poland. They also did not take into account the response of Polish society to the situation - the polarization of moods and narratives or actions taken by non-governmental organizations, informal groups and individual people. Additionally, during the project, in February 2022, Russia''s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and thousands of refugees from this country arrived in Poland. This situation has revealed huge differences in the treatment of refugees from Ukraine and from war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa.
The project included two main types of activities: - publications / lesson plans, i.e. preparation of ready-made materials for work with students - educational and consulting support for teachers. As a result, an important educational material was created - the publication "People between borders. Lesson plans on migration, refugees and the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, including: - 8 lesson plans arranged in 2 cycles (for two age groups) of 4 lessons each (some scenarios may last longer than 4 lesson hours), - 1 material for young people to work on independently (consisting of two scenarios, each lasting approximately 90 minutes). Also implemented: - 2 online workshops, disseminating the issues of migration and refugees in the Polish context, promoting and testing educational materials addressed to various age groups. - 1 stationary workshop disseminating the issues of migration and refugees in the Polish context, promoting educational materials for the entire teaching staff of the Lauder-Morasha School Complex in Warsaw. A total of 57 people were trained - teachers, educators, school librarians, speech therapists and informal education educators. Additionally, 7 people benefited from supervision or expert consultations, obtaining support in conducting anti-discrimination education at school. A meeting was also organized to disseminate educational materials, carried out in cooperation with the editorial office of OKO.Press.
The project ended with the release of educational materials. Within the time frame of this project, this is the main result and the realized need formulated by people involved in education - there was a lack of material on the Polish market, tailored to different age groups and the specificity of work at school, which does not deal generally with migration and refugees in the world or in Europe ( Balkan route, Mediterranean route), but it talks about what is happening here and now - in Poland. This material has enormous potential that must be and will be developed after the completion of this project. Based on this material, teenagers - future adults and voters - will gain knowledge and will be able to form their own independent opinion about migration movements. This will also enable reflection on one''s own prejudices and personal attitudes towards refugees. We hope that as a result, young people will become more resistant to manipulation, hate speech and disinformation. Some of them may become involved in human rights activities. At TEA, we plan to continue disseminating this topic and the resulting material during workshops, anti-discrimination education courses and educational meetings. Testing workshops were also of great value, bringing changes to the content of the manual. They allowed, among other things, to refine the instructions for the exercises, make the duration of individual scenarios more realistic and develop the part related to legal regulations. Both online and stationary workshops were very positively received by the participants. The need to disseminate this topic and the importance of introducing this topic in classes with children and teenagers were pointed out. We have also established cooperation with the Granica Group to promote events, and cooperation with OKO.Press. It turned out that reliable and independent journalism is a necessary condition for students to be able to work on source texts - articles and reports.