Led by the teacher Anna Ricchiuti, contact person for the “Economy at School Project” which involved first, second and third grade children, the Powerpoint video was shown with all the phases of the workshops carried out in Caritas, at RecuperiAmoci, Emporio ecosolidale and Sartoria Storie&stoffe, and at EPASS. Watching the video allowed the parents present, at Caritas volunteers, Gabriella, Licia, Angela and Antonellato the President of the Unesco CLUB, Pina Catinoand to the President of Epass Luigi De Pinto to have a total vision of the project, in which they had participated with individual segments, and the richness of the stimuli offered to children in all phases which had the long-term objective of the 2030 Agenda. All those who spoke had words of applause for the work accomplished and thanks.
The teacher Angela Valente, representative of the Interculture Project, guided the fourth and fifth graders in the screening of the video which began with a beautiful image with the subtitle “The world is in our hands. Since we are not an island but social beings, we need to learn altruism.” The whole workshop had the aim of opening up to others.
The coordinator and the teacher-cultural mediator of Oasi 2 spoke, Emma Caldarola and Roberta Rigatti, together with Mohamed, Rachid and Bangali, the three young people who are doing an integration journey here in Bisceglie. With them and with the father of a classmate the children they told each other and they listened”different stories“, they learned geography, locating the country of origin and the distance that separates it from ours on the planisphere, the tonguewith language games, also in French, ed interactive digital activitiesaspects of their culture too dancing. And it was all informative and fun! The two Projects had as a characterizing element the opening of the school to the territory. Furthermore, it was highlighted that education for sustainable development does not only mean the environment but also the economy (consumption, poverty in the North and South of the world) and society (rights, peace, health and cultural diversity).
The children asked themselves: Who helps whom? Who is getting help? And they learned how the answer is always both. Those who make their expertise available to try to respond to the needs of a person or a community receive much more than what they offer. In Service-Learning the relationship is not unidirectional, but circular, because “it is by giving that we receive”. The conclusion that the children reached after the experience in the two realities of Caritas and EPASS and with the “special” meetings is that the planet is everyone’s good and each of us is responsible for it… even the most small gestures can contribute to a better future. And the image of the world drawn on the palms of the joined hands highlights this significantly.
The final act of the work was the creation of many hands of colored cardboard with a word, a phrase, a thought that the long work suggested. Two elements demonstrate that Service-Learning helps to promote essential opportunities for developing citizenship values and attitudes. The first is the wealth of significant words written by the children on the cardboard hands hanging from the trees – conclusion of the last workshop: love, learning to help, union, doing good, friendship, respect, sharing, solidarity, brotherhood. The second element is the words of the parents interviewed: the children, when they returned home, not only told what they had done in the afternoon but, in the following days, they wanted to repeat and apply what they had learnt. This is perhaps the most important element: through children, positive messages are also transmitted to adults, who are often busy with a thousand practical problems.
«The seeds deposited in the minds and hearts of the teachers who followed the children for many afternoon hours during the implementation of the two projects are many: the painstaking work of the teachers deserves applause because there is a need for values that unite the human beings of the whole world to save this planet of ours, which is the only one we have – he commented Sergio Ruggieri, coordinator of the city’s Caritas -. We volunteers do it silently and daily with our work, but now we know that many children know us and with them also many families. Thank you teachers! We are waiting for you again! »
