Turn on your school!

About this project

<p>Shaping attitudes of solidarity, responsibility, and social involvement among young people is a crucial task of schools and a mission of many social organizations. In this project, we wish to develop such a model of cooperation that will support both parties and local communities all around Poland. Based on our experience and data available (CBOS: The Youth 2018, Klon/Jawor: Condition of the NGO sector, 2018), we have identified 3 challenges: lack of up-to-date diagnosis of cooperation between schools and organizations, difficulties while recruiting employees and volunteers in organizations, and a low level of knowledge about organizations among the youth. Responding to such challenges, we plan 4 groups of activities. We will check the cooperation between schools and organizations (18 schools, 10 organizations), whereas the report on the study will constitute a point of reference for the substantive part of further activities. We will design and release a discussion card game for pupils, which will help them understand the essence of activities and objectives of NGOs. We will develop the Code of Good Cooperation, promoting the cooperation between these entities. We will organize meetings, webinars, and training courses related to good cooperation for school staff as well as representatives of social organizations. We will engage approx. 500 teachers from at least 200 secondary and post-secondary schools as well as approx. 100 representatives of social organizations. The Center for Citizenship Education - project partner - provides valuable experience in working with the school environment and creating educational materials as well as tools and channels allowing them to reach schools, teachers, and headmasters. Norsensus Mediaforum, a Norwegian partner, will share with us good practices from Scandinavian countries in the area of cooperation of Norwegian schools and NGOs and share their expertise in the area of communication and storytelling.</p>

Bilateral cooperation results

Having a Norwegian partner was motivating for us to look at the situation of our project from a distance and to look for ways to communicate it, to think about our questions and challenges we look for answers.This was valuable for us, but it didn’t require foreign cooperation and could also be achieved through other methods. A training on inspiring and helpful storytelling+materials was successfully delivered by our partner but the expert commentary on the results of our study, the good practices and the videos and animation about cooperation between NGOs and schools in Norway were difficult for us to use due to their very general nature.Despite previous discussions, these materials didn’t address any of the challenges faced by schools and NGOs in Poland, particularly at the very difficult time in which we were carrying out these activities (discussions on changes to the education law). Due to the relatively much greater trust in the state, politicians and public institutions and the better condition of the education sector, the challenges faced by Norwegian NGOs and the activities they undertake are of a completely different kind.This represented a real difficulty in using the prepared materials effectively. In addition, low level of commitment and initiative from the Partner, difficulties in ongoing contact and communication, little contribution of a Partner both to the area of supporting NGOs, which we were particularly keen on, but also little support to us as a team in communicating our project’s activities. We did, however, gain a valuable observation that there are a lot of very inspiring projects happening in Polish schools and NGOs - no less(if not more)engaging and bringing about social change than in Norway.Moreover, having learnt from this experience, we’ve planned further cooperation with our Partner in a different way, bearing in mind the social and cultural differences, which are difficult to recognize and address without direct talks.

Project partners

• Norsensus Mediaforum Donor project partner· Norway
• Fundacja Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej Project partner· Poland