Address: Poti, Zhvania st. 9

Country: Georgia

 School website

Project: Freedom is in diversity

 

Working language during the project:

  • Georgian
  • English
     

Themes of the Council of Europe project “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

  • Making children’s and students’ voices heard
  • Addressing controversial issues
  • Improving well-being at school
     

Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:

  • Valuing cultural diversity
    Students explored the religious and cultural characteristics of different ethnic groups. Presentations were made emphasising that appreciation of all cultures is important for a democratic society.
  • Tolerance of ambiguity
    The students created comics where they depicted and conveyed various religious holidays.
  • Co-operation skills
    Students collaborated with each other in the process of preparing the presentations. They also collaborated with tutors from different classes and jointly produced comics that were presented to the school community.
     

Target group age range:

  • 11-15
  • 15-19
     

Level of education:

  • Lower secondary education
  • Upper secondary education
     

Short description of the project:

Georgia is a multi-ethnic state, which throughout its history has coexisted harmoniously with different ethnic groups. The Georgian nation has always accepted all religions and denominations. In this connection, a short-term school project was planned in Poti Public School N 2 "Freedom through diversity." The project involved 35 school students of intermediate level and teachers. In the first phase of the project, students explored and developed the following topics: Democratic culture, cultural diversity, human rights in the Constitution of Georgia and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The project involved the departments of Georgian language and literature and social sciences. At the initial stage of the project, students explored the inclusive characteristics of a democratic culture. They studied the Georgian Constitution and the Convention on Human Rights. They published relevant articles in a document and prepared a PowerPoint presentation. The students involved in the project offered the social sciences department and school tutors the chance to use the presentation in their classrooms and during the tutoring hours of Human Rights and the Georgian Constitution.

The school’s head teachers organised a remote meeting with the students and used the presentations prepared within the project during the tutoring hour. Based on the meetings, the elementary school students prepared posters on the topic: the Georgian Constitution and Human Rights. Students devised a slogan for putting on posters along the following lines: Georgia is a state that welcomes diversity because ....

The students involved in the project studied the religions of different ethnic minorities living in Georgia, identified religious characteristics and prepared presentation papers on the following topics: Judaism and Georgia, the Armenian Church in Georgia, the Catholic Church in Georgia, the Lutheran Church in Georgia, Islam in Georgia, Yazidis in Georgia, Buddhism and Georgia. The students searched for chapels, mosques and synagogues of different religious groups. They identified the particularities of each religious denomination and prepared presentations. They organised a working meeting with the basic level tutors. They submitted papers and conducted one of the tutoring classes using the presentations. The students involved in the project prepared comics on the topic "Diverse Georgia". Through the comics, the students portrayed the religious holidays of the ethnic groups living in Georgia and the religious characteristics of these holidays. The final event was held remotely. A group was organised by the students involved in the project, where representatives of the school administration, the school council and the local municipality cultural service were invited to take part. The students organised an exhibition of their work. They presented papers and talked about Georgia as an ethnically diverse state. They presented and explained the religious characteristics and religious holidays of the different ethnic groups.

It was planned to post the materials created within the project on the website of the Cultural Service.
 

Aims/objectives

  • Introducing a culture of democracy in school life
  • Collaboration of departments and students of different grades
     

Expected results/outcomes

Within the framework of the project, different types of comics were created, which conveyed well the open culture of diverse Georgia.
 

Changes

Teamwork, collaboration of parallel classes and departments
 

Challenges you faced

  • Lack of ability to find and generate information independently.
  • Fostering student motivation in the face of pandemic-induced regulations.
  • Developing assessment criteria for interim monitoring of the training project.
     

Time-frame of the project:

The project took two months to implement.
 

Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:

  • Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
  • Living Democracy - manuals for teachers
  • Democratic governance of schools
  • Compass
  • We CAN!