Learning to live together

Project owner: Bundesgymnasium Bludenz

Responsible person: Mag. Jürgen Schacherl

2017

2,000 Euro Prize

AT

Public administration

What is it about?

Talk less, do more, we’re told. But what if doing more means talking more? Because what if talking more then enables one to do more? This is the premise of our project, which seeks to help unaccompanied refugee minors find their place and independence in a new society through peer-instructed language sessions. More than a language course, our weekly meetings are a forum for intercultural dialogue.

Appreciation of the Jury

Students and the refugees entrusted to them together organise individual teaching in an innovative way. With a one-on-one ratio for learners and mentors, mostly female students meet mostly male refugees – preconceived notions about what women and men ought to do will be rewardingly irritated. The school as the structuring institution opens up space, its teachers provide a supportive framework, within which the students and adolescent refugees act autonomously and develop their interchange. Regional networking and media coverage enable the broader public, if it so wants, to observe that, amazingly, prejudices are sometimes simply useless…