Sar Upre!

The Czech Republic has created a legislative framework for inclusive education that focuses on creating optimal conditions for the maximal development of each individual, and that cannot be achieved without providing each individual with high-quality support. Educators are very creative people, and they do a great deal of work in order to make their instruction effective, but most of them continue to encounter problems that appear most distinctly in practice when they work with pupils of Romani origin. Some of these pupils require a specific approach.

What is needed from the educator, therefore? Teachers must ascertain what pupils’ educational needs and strengths are, must study which actions and activities will suit such pupils in particular, and must put together a colorful mosaic of instruction techniques in which each pupil will find what exactly suits him or her. Teachers have the power to motivate pupils, to be their role models and life mentors.

For that reason, we are introducing a new, two-year project, "Sar Upre!" (“How to Do It!”), which continues the portfolio of educational programs run by the Slovo 21, z.s. organization. The aim of the project is to increase the competencies of educators in the primary schools in so they will no longer perceive their pupils as a group, but as individuals coming from different cultural and living conditions, and so they adapt their instruction methods accordingly. In our opinion, this is the kind of didactic mastery that an excellent teacher can achieve.

Within the framework of bilateral collaboration with Iceland, this project will be conducted with inclusive education professionals from that country. It will involve 30 educators and 800 pupils, most of whom will be Romani. The results of the project will also be disseminated to other schools in the Czech Republic.

The project will involve the following activities:

1. Teacher trainings and the creation of supportive instructional materials within the framework of inclusive education.

2. The Inclusive Education Summer School.

3. International training of experts and teachers in the Czech Republic and Iceland.

4. Production and distribution of an animated short film on this topic featuring puppets, directed by Jakub Červenka.

5. Meetings - introductory meeting, international meeting with all of the partners (the EVRIS Foundation in Iceland, the Prague 4 Municipal Department, and the Prague 5 Education and Information Center), as well as a final meeting (with the purpose of ascertaining the overall outcomes of the project and sharing successful examples from practice).

We believe this project will answer the question “How to do it?” and will aid educators with acquiring practical experience that will facilitate their working with children in a more high-quality way. This will contribute to these pupils’ harmonious development and to their becoming more included by the majority society.

The project runs from 1. 8. 2020 to 31. 1. 2023 and is financed from the EEA 2014-2021 Education program, the agent for which is the Center for International Cooperation in Education (Dům zahraniční spolupráce).

Information and updates can be also followed on the Facebook page of Slovo 21. For more information, contact project coordinator Sara Sedláčková at e-mail slovo21@centrum.cz with “Sar Upre!” in the subject line.