From the 25th to 30th of October 2022, the ESMOVIA delegation composed by Maria Ángeles Ruiz Gámez, Angelo D’Andrea and Naomi Roldán, flew to Sofia, Bulgaria to attend the Erasmus+ project “INNOVATIVE PRACTICES FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE” – 2021-1-BG01-KA210-SCH-2394. In this mobility participated also the delegation of the school CEIP La Coma, Marta Honrubia and Estefanía Guerrero, nursery and primary school teachers.
The Spanish delegation was received and hosted by our long term partner “94th High School “Dimitar Strashimirov” represented by the director Latinka Borisova Kovacheva.
While in Sofia the partners organized reunions with the stakeholders and attended visits to the school in order to debate about the successful approaches to promote inclusion in education and explore how transnational cooperation between teachers, youth workers and other support staff can facilitate this process.
Meeting and visits
The first meeting of the project took place at the Dimitar Strashimirov school 94, where Naomi Roldán, ESMOVIA group coordinator, together with Marta Honrubia and Estefanía Guerrero, presented the history of CEIP La Coma. Located in the Valencian municipality of Paterna, CEIP La Coma receives its name from the neighborhood where it is located and where most of its students live. It was founded 35 years ago and currently has two classes per course, almost 200 students enrolled and a total of 39 teachers. The majority of the students belong to the Roma community.
The main objective of the meeting was to analyze the common points and differences between the Spanish and Bulgarian Roma culture, compare the educational system implemented in both schools and identify the most suitable inclusion methodologies and processes.
During the mobility, in addition to visiting and organizing reunions in the 94 Dimitar Strashimirov school with its teachers, the Spanish delegation attended also an informative talk at the Faculty of Economics, belonging to the Neofit Rilski Southwestern University in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria).
During this meeting led by Dr. Preslav Dimitrov, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and PhD in Economic Sciences, the importance of European Erasmus+ projects for young students from all over Europe and also for schools was discussed.
Conclusions of the mobility
We all agreed on the importance of unconventional spaces and the combination of formal, non-formal and informal learning can create engaging and stimulating learning environments, offer a wide range of learning methods and inspiring lessons that reinforces students’ motivation.
Other important conclusions were:
- showing the importance of success and a sense of belonging to the school;
- demonstrating how a positive and non-judgmental learning environment contributes to the academic performance of graduates and can bring changes in the school culture;
- highlighting the importance of teacher competencies to master inclusive and inspiring learning process;
- highlight the importance of involving families and the Roma community in general to support inclusive schools.
The mobility showed also the importance of Erasmus+ project in improving the educational system and offering opportunities for students and encouraged the teachers of CEIP La Coma to write projects to promote the inclusion, so that their students would one day have the possibility of learning while traveling and improve their future.
As always it was a pleasure to meet again our long term partner and to continue working together for youth and for their education!
