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Description
The aim of the project is to provide systemic support to the community of foreigners living in the City of Bielsko-Biała. We want to set up the School of Cross-cultural Assistants and thus ensure a friendly environment for foreigners, including equal opportunities and rights for their children. We will also support cross-cultural dialogue in educational institutions. As part of the project we will conduct two editions of a training session for 30 cross-cultural assistants and enable them to start work in schools or kindergartens attended by the largest number of foreigners. Through this activity, we would like to make it easier for the school and kindergarten communities to accept foreigners, and also to help the newcomers integrate faster and more effectively in their new environment. The assistants will also be able to support companies employing foreigners in their cross-cultural activities. In addition, we will offer the assistants foreign language teaching and establish lasting cooperation with schools. In cooperation with students and teachers we will organize cross-cultural mini-festivals. The need for the project is confirmed by the interviews we conducted with the representatives of the schools (mainly headmasters) and by the conference ‘Diversity is a value’ which took place on February 3, 2022.
Summary of project results
The aim of the project was to systematically support the integration of foreigners and improve their functioning in the local environment by organizing a School of Intercultural Assistants in Bielsko-Biała. Many migrants experience great difficulties in adapting to the new environment. This problem particularly affects children and young people who function every day in a new environment of an unfamiliar school. At the same time, changing one''s place of residence is a process of building new interpersonal relationships. Recognizing these two fundamental challenges of migrants, we have prepared a project for the School of Intercultural Assistants. The main areas of impact of the project were the school environment and the activity of migrants in the city space. The work of the Assistants, graduates of the Assistant School, focused on creating a friendly development environment for foreign children (through support in everyday functioning at school) and strengthening intercultural dialogue in educational institutions. In turn, the increased presence of foreigners in the cultural life of Bielsko-Biała and the meeting of migrants and the local community were to be facilitated by intercultural mini-festivals organized after both editions of the course.
During this time, we managed to build a completely new entity, based on competent trainers, committed employees and openness of the students. The School of Intercultural Assistants consists of two courses and over 200 training hours. We managed to prepare 35 women - Polish and Ukrainian - to work in their new roles. Thanks to them, dozens, maybe hundreds of children and families living in Bielsko-Biała will receive support.
We organized two intercultural mini-festivals. In both cases, the central event was a multicultural picnic, which was an opportunity to meet and have fun together for everyone - both Poles and migrants. We conducted four language courses - Ukrainian and Polish as a foreign language. All these activities were oriented towards one - the most important goal of this project - support and integration of foreigners living in Bielsko-Biała.
The best support system is building relationships - good, respectful and open relationships between people. We managed to build a network of contacts - both with people and institutions. We cooperated with coaches and assistants from Wrocław, Krakow and Warsaw. Our students conducted training in over 20 school and non-school institutions.
The project achieved the following results:
- 2 editions of the course were carried out as part of the School of Intercultural Assistants, during which 35 Assistants were trained - thanks to the courses, the Assistants improved their competences both at the level of knowledge (in the field of psychology, sociology, law) and at the level of skills (including working with people with trauma, group work, etc.);
- The assistants conducted almost 250 hours of classes for 1,114 children and young people in 21 schools and partner institutions - thus building positive intercultural relations and improving the knowledge of children and young people about multiculturalism;
- 4 language courses were carried out aimed at improving communication between the Assistants and the people they will work with;
- two study visits were held, the aim of which was to learn good practices in assistant work and to establish relationships between new assistants (graduates of our courses) and more experienced assistants;
- two intercultural mini-festivals were organized, which allowed migrants and residents of Bielsko-Biała to meet and get to know each other better;
- 3 conferences were organized (starting the project, at the end of the first edition and at the end of the entire project), which showed the need for the School of Assistants and were an opportunity to build new contacts, this time at the institutional level;
- there is a website and the School''s Facebook profile, i.e. tools used to promote the project and communicate with recipients