Between October 6th and 12th, a new expedition of students and teachers from IES Radio Exterior travelled to Geel in Belgium to get new experiences and knowledge about migration within the Erasmus + KA2 “Building Bridges” program. Our hosts, teachers from Sint Maria in Geel (Belgium), prepared an incredible schedule of activities with students and teachers from Rome and Hamburg delegations.
The first day (7th October), the hosts (Geel, Belgium) received the delegations with an opening ceremony where they introduced the participants of the program as well as a presentation of the school and the history of migration in Belgium. As a welcome party, each delegation (Geel, Rome, Hamburg and Alicante) brought typical food from each country in an international lunch buffet and played ice breaker activities/games like a city game in small international groups where they had to take pictures of the city (Geel).
The second day, the group stopped by Brussels where they explored the historic city centre in small international groups with assignments and had a guided visit of the European Parliament.
During the third day, the students role played on migration, cultural habits, values, prejudice, intolerance and discrimination, followed by a tour in Sjans Thrift Store (Second hand store) and an art tour of the city.
On October 10th, there was a trip to Ambers in small groups guided by older students from Sint Maria. In the afternoon, they visited the temporary exposition of “Einstein” and the permanent collection of “Red Starline Museum” closed by a farewell party in the Vonk.
The final day, each delegation did a presentation about the connection between the project activities and the objectives of their own school Erasmus plan as well as a creative workshop in which they designed a “tote bag” with their impressions of the week. It was challenging but they did it brilliantly.
It has been an incredible experience with lots of adventures, new friendships and unforgettable moments.
