Inter-ethnic

Inter-ethnic communication and cooperation among students in ethnically mixed schools

Project Goal:

Inter-ethnic cooperation and tolerance contributes to the supportive development of the multi – ethnic communities in Macedonia.

Project Strategic Objectives:

1: School students with various multi-ethnic backgrounds have reduced tension among themselves

2: Targeted schools have improved their methods to enhance multi – ethnic understanding

Timeframe:

Start Date: 1 October 2005 / Completion Date: 30 September 2007

Funding: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) - www.catholicrelief.org

Project Partners:

The project will be implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) ensuring full cooperation of the schools and providing expertise in program implementation.

Project Stakeholders: Teachers and students from four ethnically mixed schools

Project Summary:

The project involves a program of workshops for planning and realization of extracurricular activities for the students and strengthening of their communication and cooperation by overcoming the language and cultural differences. The projects also awards small grants for the schools to support extracurricular activities with multicultural contents and establishment of a practice for realization of such activities in the school. This project includes 7 ethnically mixed elementary schools and 400 students, 30 teachers, school pedagogues and psychologists.

Implemented activities:

	Training / workshop for teachers and school staff - MCEC organized training / workshops for selected teachers and school support staff in order to provide specific guidance, example methods and materials to the teachers and school staff that they used in the process of developing extracurricular activities for overcoming inter-ethnic barriers among students in their school according to each school specifics.
	Development of schools’ Action Plans for extra curricular activities - Upon received training on development and implementation of extra curricular activities for students, the teachers and school staff at each targeted school developed Action Plans in accordance with each school’s specifics and needs.
	Extracurricular activities supported through Small Grants Program - Each participating school was supported from the Small Grant Program.
	Best practices printed as model activities booklet - Based on presented reports from each school for implemented extracurricular activities, as well as MCEC monitoring reports, the best practices were selected for publication in order to promote successful model activities for enhancing inter-ethnic communication and cooperation among students.
	Model activities booklet - published on Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish languages of instruction. Please follow the link for the booklet on English, Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish language.