Over the past several months, the students that participated in the joint school clubs for interethnic integration have been developing their skills and creative ideas by conducting multiple initiatives and activities, within the Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Cooperation in Municipalities Project, supported by the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation.
At the primary school “Brakja Ribar” from the village of Tabanovce, Kumanovo, during the last school year an eco school club was implemented titled Green Steps, which was aimed at fostering and developing the creative abilities and skills for raising the environmental awareness of the students and the mutual communication and cooperation. These goals were successfully achieved through the implementation of numerous activities. The students arranged the landscaping of the schoolyard and placed bird feeders. They marked the International Food Day with a charity action for collecting preserved food, which was then donated to families which needed it the most. They also implemented an action for embellishing and painting the schoolyard fence and organized an eco-quiz at the school, after which they publicly presented the achieved results.
Last year, the students from the primary school “Zivko Brajkovski” in Butel participated in the Maths school club. When the weather was nice, they drew movement direction marks and played games in the schoolyard intended for the youngest students, all the while observing all the protection protocols. After this, the activities continued with distance learning during which they created various Maths-related social games, activities for marking public holidays, etc. In order to stir up the students’ interest, as well as to achieve full integration at the school, the teachers made certain changes in the plans and, in addition to Maths, they also introduced learning the sign language with a view to integrating students with impaired hearing. Thus, in addition to the Maths knowledge acquired, the students also spent time together finding new ways of improved communication and understanding for all students at this school.
The primary school “Toli Zordumis” from Kumanovo worked in the eco-school club. During the school year, the students researched the greenhouse effect, they created an Eco-Code for the school, they learned something more about the carbon footprint and were able to independently make calculations. The students performed all these activities remotely and, in addition to the knowledge acquired, they also had a chance to spend time together, work in groups, communicate and develop mutual friendships.
Many interesting activities were implemented also at the primary school “Krste Petkov Misirkov” from Radovis. During the school year, the technical education – model building school club was active, in which the students had an opportunity to get to know and learn something more about model building of names on paper, making objects from recycled materials, clay jewellery, painting clay objects, carving as a craft, riding the bicycle to a particular destination and playing games without borders. Some of these activities were conducted via distance learning, while the rest were implemented with physical presence at the schoolyard by observing the protection protocols. In order for the students to be able to more easily understand the techniques for making objects in various crafts, they were also joined by guests who have worked in a particular craft for many years and who presented their creations and techniques to the students.
Students from various ethnic communities continue spending time together and participating in joint activities through which they learn new things while working together on topics which are their shared interest.
This activity is part of the Strengthening Multi-ethnic Cooperation in Municipalities Project, supported by the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation (PCF).
