Intercultural learning seminars

Recent events which Interkultura organised or participated in:

Teachers as Future Disseminators of Peace, 21-23 October 2016, Belgrade

A three-day seminar titled Teachers as Future Disseminators of Peace took place in Belgrade, October 21st-23rd.The aim of the project was to strengthen relations between AFS organizations in BIH, CRO, SLO and SRB and schools, which would help profile AFS as an educational institution offering opportunities for peace education and intercultural learning. An additional aim was to connect educators from the region and inspire them to both jointly and individually develop exchange programmes in their schools and communities.The participants were 20 teachers (6 from SLO, 5 from CRO, 4 from BIH, 5 from SRB), plus 5 AFS representatives from each country, some of which also had the trainer role. The programme consisted of the following elements: AFS history and peace mission, ICL theory and practice, and organizing student exchanges. Special guests at the training were exchange students and a teacher with a lot of AFS experience at school, which helped bring the training content closer to participants. The seminar was very positively evaluated by teachers who left Belgrade with lots of information on intercultural education as an instrument for peace, and more importantly, ideas and plans for projects which they will implement.

Training for AFS Volunteers in Arandjelovac, 15 November 2016

Forum on Intercultural Learning and Exchange, 3-5 November 2016 Italy

FILE is the annual Forum on Intercultural Learning and Exchange sponsored by the Intercultura Foundation in Colle di Val d’Elsa (Italy), the European Federation for Intercultural Learning (EFIL) in Brussels (Belgium) and AFS Intercultural Programs in New York (USA). It includes – by invitation – some sixty experts, researchers and practitioners in the field of international youth exchanges and intercultural learning. It is an opportunity for academics to meet and discuss with professionals and volunteers who work in the field of intercultural education – and for practitioners to learn about theories and researches in this field.

VII FILE topic: The intercultural training of teachers: what, when, how?
Sub-topics

Should intercultural learning be a separate subject in the curriculum of pupils or should it cut across all subjects?
Which initial intercultural training for teachers? methodologies? content?
Or should it be part of their in-service training?
Which teachers should receive this training? foreign language teachers? others? all?
How do we check/assess the outcome?
Role of governments, teacher training colleges, educational agencies: how to promote cooperation on these topics?
How to promote teacher exchanges and international partnerships?
Examples of good practices

Desired outcomes

Proposals on:

how teacher training could include a preparation for the task of transferring an intercultural mindset to pupils in school.
how teachers can be given tools to provide intercultural learning opportunities for their pupils, esp. in secondary schools.

Training for AFS volunteers, 17-18 September 2016, Belgrade

Interkultura organised a volunteer training which took place in Belgrade, at the cultural centre Dom Porodice Pavlovic, and it was attended by 22 volunteers from different parts of Serbia. The training had two tracks: training for new volunteers and training for experienced volunteers. The topics covered the methodology of intercultural learning, exchange programmes, areas of volunteer activity, support for AFS programme participants.

EFIL Volunteer Summer Summit, 30 July - 4 August 2016

In August, close to 290 AFS volunteers were gathered on the island of San Servolo, Venice, Italy for the 9^th edition of the EFIL Volunteer Summer Summit making it the biggest international AFS event of the year in the network. 40 different AFS Partners were present including most of EFIL’s Member Organisations as well as: AFS Argentina and Uruguay, AFS Australia, AFS Brazil, AFS Chile, AFS Ghana, AFS India, AFS Indonesia, EIL Ireland, AFS Japan, AFS Malaysia, AFS Paraguay, AFS South Africa and AFS Thailand. Serbia was represented by two trainers and three participants.