Adaptation for the youngest – intercultural assistants in the Wroclaw schools__

Foundation Ukraine always takes care of the adaptation of children. In the framework of our projects, intercultural assistants work in the Wroclaw schools, providing help and support for the foreign children. Moreover, shortly, the new school for intercultural assistants will start its work under the management of the Foundation “Kalejdoskop Kultur”. 

School, as the main center for children’s socialization, is one of the most important directions of our adaptational and integration events for foreign kids in the Lower Silesia. In the framework of the project FAMI, which is aimed to strengthen the integration process of third-country citizens in the way of creating a wide spectrum of support. Such forms of support will be applied to the needs of foreigners. Schools in Wroclaw have already employed intercultural assistants who provide help and support during their working hours. 

The idea of mutual tolerance and respect in schools

The aim of our assistants is concentrated on enhancing foreign children and their parents to actively join the school life, drawing the attention of the Polish pupils, their parents, and teachers to the question of multiculturalism, breaking the stereotypes based on nationality, ethnicity, religion and intensifying the grow of tolerance and respect.        

Language support of foreign students and their families

Assistants have a similar experience of adaptation to the children’s one. Therefore, they provide language assistance for the foreign pupils and their families, give all the needed information for teachers about the culture of kids’ origin, solve particular conflicts in the international school environment. Nowadays, schools of Wroclaw employ 2 intercultural assistants(SP nr 90, SP nr 50, SP nr 84, SP nr 16).   

“Day-to-day I face some new challenges. However, I think that children mostly value the presence of the assistant in the school. They often come to me during short breaks to say ‘Hi’, to show their achievements or just talk in their native language.” – Oleksandr Kosior, intercultural assistant. 

Recruitment of the intercultural assistants to the schools in Wroclaw

This year in the framework of the project reStart will be started “The school of the intercultural assistants” which will be implemented by the Foundation “Kalejdoskop Kultur” in cooperation with the Wroclaw Centre for Social Development. 

The school’s work aims to prepare a group of people interested in serving as intercultural assistants in schools. An educational program will involve elements of workshops and seminars connected to the topics of how to acquire intercultural competencies and knowledge in the field of multiculturalism, including intercultural education, seminars on the topic of anti-discrimination, the legal status of the migrants. Also, the topics of mediation, non-violence communication, how to conduct integration events for children and their parents, the rights of children and parents in the school system, the form of cooperation between the teacher and assistant.    

Up to March 13, 2020, there is a possibility to sign up for the courses for the intercultural assistants on the web-site of our partner http://kalejdoskopkultur.pl/?p=3752. Please, get acquainted with the requirements and join our collaborative creation of the happy childhood for our kids helping them and creating the environment free of stereotypes for learning, integration, and development.   

The project reStart, co-financed by the Programme of the European Asylum Fund, Migration and Integration, and also by the national budget. 

The project “Integration, adaptation, acceptation. Support of the third-country nationals living in Lower Silesia”, co-financed by the Programme of the European Asylum Fund, Migration and Integration, and also by the national budget.