Wednesday, 12.01.2022.
SCHOOL GRANTS AS GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES IN INTERCULTURAL COOPERATION
Since 2017, the Service of the Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa and Group 484 have been implementing the project “Our City, Our Schools” in cooperation with two secondary schools and nine primary schools in Bujanovac, with the support of the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation.
About 200 primary and secondary school teachers attended seminars where they strengthened their own competencies for intercultural learning and the development of (inter)cultural and social competencies of young people through the curriculum and extracurricular activities. More than 1,000 school students attended the extracurricular intercultural educational programme and together, through mini-research projects and actions in public space, encouraged solidarity and mutual respect of the citizens of Bujanovac, while 80 school students participated in intercultural exchange with youth from Europe in the Children’s Village in Trogen, Switzerland.
In 2021, we financially supported four primary and two secondary schools in Bujanovac with a total of 636,000.00 RSD wishing to encourage and further support primary and secondary schools in mutual cooperation.
1. “Vuk Karadžić” and “Ali Bektashi” primary schools, with a joint project called “Intercool Magazine” – the first bilingual school magazine in Serbian and Albanian, which promotes interculturalism in schools and the local community through various activities. The pages of the magazine are filled with experiences of school students related to journalism workshops, a joint trip to Niš, the planting of the “Mini Garden of Friendship” in the schoolyard in Oslari, actions of school student parliaments on the importance of tolerance in violence prevention, and artworks of children and youth.
2. “Naim Frasheri” and “Branko Radičević” primary schools, with a joint project “Humanitarian Bazaar”, which aimed to strengthen mutual cooperation between the schools through humanitarian work. At the bazaar, youth exhibited their products from joint art and creative workshops, workshops on recycling, interesting recipes of favourite dishes from the Serbian, Albanian, and Roma communities, and presented a musical dance performance.
3. “Sveti Sava” and “Sezai Surroi” secondary schools applied with two different projects, but with common goals: promotion of ecology, healthy lifestyles, and improving the practice of youth in vocational subjects. Secondary school teachers had the opportunity to go through a seminar on stress management and for some of them held a joint outdoor lesson for Serbian and Albanian school students. Additionally, school students painted the “Mural of Friendship” to encourage future generations to socialise and act together.
About 80 teachers, 300 school students, 25 parents, and about 100 citizens went through the activities of school projects, and the foundations for further cooperation in the field of interculturality were laid.
The other 5 partner schools will have the opportunity to receive financial support for the realisation of the project in 2022.
