SANLIURFA MEETING

IES BLAS INFANTE HOSTS A SOLIDARITY COMENIUS PROJECT

IES Blas Infante in Córdoba, Spain had the honour of hosting the participants in the last Project meeting of our Multilateral Comenius “A World of Differences”, which took place from the 30^th of April to the 6^th of May 2010.

A total of 12 members of staff and 41 students from the partner schools attended the meeting. Students were hosted by Spanish families.

 Among other activities carried out along these days we stand out the Intercultural Exhibition opened by our former inspector Mr. Juan Rubio and the visits to Granada and the city of Córdoba, these ones guided by our tourism students. Our European partners attended some of our classes, especially the ones in our plurilingual section, taught in English. They could also enjoy a workshop of Dances of the World.  

But the main Project activities were related to Helping Ryan’s Well Foundation.  We liked the example of Canadian boy Ryan Hreljiac, who when he was only 6 years old, decided to fund a well in Africa and, when he was only 10, he founded his own NGO with the objective of getting safe water to all the children in the world. Along all this school year Blas Infante has been working raising of awareness and helping in the building of a well, water canalization, latrines and a training programme for teachers in a school in Togo. We have written a theatre play in five scenes which tells Ryan’s story. Each partner school had prepared several scenes and the 4th of May we performed the common play. All a success of a very ambitious Project. We were deeply moved by the performance of the play with five different accents where more than 70 students took part.

We also made a recipe book to help the NGO, which we called A World of Recipes. The book has more than 100 recipes from families and staff of the five partner schools, 82 of which were cooked in Córdoba Project meeting on the 4th of May, after the theatre play. Each European student and his or her Spanish partner cooked a dish from his or her home country and another from Spain. The book is still on sale to contribute with Ryan’s Well. We have edited it three times. Our school has already raised 2380€ and our European partners more than 1000€.

We conclude this European School Partnership with the satisfaction of having established multiple cooperation and friendship links among the participating schools at the same time as having contributed to such an exemplary solidarity Project.

There was the third project meeting of our Comenius School project "A World of Differences" in Sanliurfa, Turkey between 19th - 23 rd October 2009. The participating schools were from Spain, Germany and Hungary. There were 29 teachers and students from the visitor schools. The teachers stayed in "El-Ruha" hotel ; which is five starred and locaded  nearby "Fish Lake" (Balıklıgöl) and the students were hosted by the Turkish families. On the first day at our school "GAP Anadolu Lİsesi" we had an opening ceremony. The mayor of Sanliurfa and the headteacher had opening speeches. Then all the students at our school enjoyed the international fair. They got informed about their schools, countries and culture. Then, on the second day, the Spanish and German students had a theatre performance at "Vali Kemal Gazezoğlu Kültür Merkezi". All students of our school enjoyed it as well. After the play, our guests visited the old city "Harran" in the afternoon. On the third and the last day, we all enjoyed the boat tour in the town of "Halfeti" and rare birds called "Ibis" in Birecik. Finally, we said "good bye" to all our guests at Sanliurfa GAP Airport as we said "wellcome" when they had arrived. 

Meeting in Uffenheim, Bavaria, Germany.The meeting took place from the 22nd to the 24th of April 2009. More than 120 students from the five schools have met. We have hold poetry workshops about interculturality where students from the five countries have worked together. The Turkish school presented us the traditional Turkish wedding ceremony, the Spanish school performed a theatre play about the Córdoba of the Three Cultures, the Hungarian school danced a song about "differences" and performed folk dances. All the schools presented their schools to the gym. All the visiting students enjoyed the German hospitality in homestays. Thank you very much, Uffenheim.