[UPWELL]

UPskilling for WELLbeing in multicultural classrooms

The Project
In today's globalized world, the classroom has become a melting pot of cultures, languages, and perspectives. Educators stand at the forefront of fostering an inclusive and dynamic learning environment that celebrates this diversity. The UPWELL project, funded by the Erasmus+ programme, is at the heart of this mission. UPWELL empowers educators in multicultural classrooms, focusing on their professional development and self-efficacy to enhance overall well-being. By addressing the unique challenges and opportunities presented in diverse educational settings, UPWELL aims to create a positive ripple effect that enriches teaching and learning experiences. Through innovative training, resources, and community-building, we support educators in crafting welcoming and inclusive environments where every student feels valued and engaged.
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Objectives

UPWELL is committed to transforming multicultural classrooms into spaces where educators feel equipped, supported, and inspired. Our objectives outline the path to achieving this vision:

Empowering Educators:

Provide educators with innovative and accessible training through OER courses and resources. This initiative aims to enhance their effectiveness, well-being, and ability to foster inclusive learning environments.

Building Confidence:

Empower teachers and develop their confidence to navigate and thrive amidst the challenges of multicultural education. By bolstering their skills and knowledge, we ensure educators are well-prepared to meet these challenges head-on.

Promoting Inclusivity:

Champion inclusive teaching practices and support continuous professional development. UPWELL encourages educators to embrace and implement strategies that acknowledge and celebrate diversity in the classroom.

Systemic Support:

Encourage and facilitate systemic support from educational institutions, policymakers, and stakeholders. Through sustainable collaboration, UPWELL seeks to influence educational policies at local, national, and European levels, ensuring the long-term impact of our mission.



The UPWELL project is more than an initiative; it's a movement towards creating more empathetic, understanding, and enriched educational landscapes. Join us in this journey to uplift educators and students alike in multicultural classrooms across Europe.

Outputs


The UPWELL project is structured around a series of key activities designed to achieve tangible results in the realm of multicultural education. Each activity contributes to the development of comprehensive outputs that collectively empower educators, enrich classroom experiences, and foster systemic change. Below is an overview of our core outputs and the results we aim to deliver.

Research and Analysis:

At the heart of UPWELL lies a foundational commitment to understanding the unique dynamics of multicultural classrooms. Through extensive research and analysis, we’ve developed a nuanced Training Strategy tailored to the complex needs of educators in diverse educational settings. This strategy serves as the cornerstone for creating a coherent curriculum and assembling resources that facilitate the upskilling of school teachers. Our goal is to equip educators with the insights and tools necessary to navigate and thrive in multicultural and complex teaching environments.

Innovative Curricula and OER:

In response to the evolving demands of multicultural education, UPWELL has crafted three competence-based curricula. These curricula encompass a core curriculum and three specialisation tracks, all designed to support the continuous professional development of educators. Accompanied by supportive guides and hosted on an accessible e-learning platform, these resources are available in multiple languages, ensuring wide-reaching impact. Through these curricula, UPWELL aims to redefine the upskilling and reskilling process for teachers, enabling them to foster inclusive and engaging learning environments.


Mobility and Training:

A pivotal component of our project is the delivery of Pilot Trainings, conducted both face-to-face and through the UPWELL e-learning platform. These sessions are vital for validating the effectiveness of our developed curricula, ensuring they meet the real-world needs and expectations of educators. By participating in these trainings, teachers gain firsthand experience with innovative teaching methods and strategies, furthering their ability to make a positive difference in their multicultural classrooms.

Networking:

UPWELL champions the creation and reinforcement of networks at local, national, and European levels. By facilitating the exchange of good practices among educators, we foster a collaborative community dedicated to advancing multicultural education. These networks serve as platforms for sharing insights, challenges, and successes, driving collective progress and innovation in the field.

Meet our UPWELL Partners

Academy of Entrepreneurship

The Academy of Entrepreneurship (AKEP) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by the historical Educational Association of Athens “HFAISTOS“. It acts in collaboration with the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Young Entrepreneurs (OESYNE) and aims to contribute to the acquisition and development of entrepreneurship and professional competences for its beneficiaries: new and aspiring entrepreneurs, teachers and students in VET and Adult education, marginalized groups and low skill adults. AKEP’s goal is to foster employability and improve instructional practices in education, so as to respond to the challenges of the labour market, raising also awareness about the importance of entrepreneurship education on national and European level.

www.akep.eu

Glocal Factory

GLOCAL FACTORY is a network joining a non-profit association and a social cooperative, both legally established in Italy. Its volunteers and professionals work in the social and educational fields, inspired by the values of social solidarity and inclusion, which are the basis of the European Union Treaties and of the Italian Constitution as well. It co-operates with schools, universities, vocational training centers, local institutions and other associations.
Glocal Factory’s activity develops along three strands:
1) Lay–out and implementation of projects in the social and educational fields
2) Design and realization of learning paths, modules and resources
3) Local events to promote citizens’ participation and debate on European society actuality and future.

www.glocalfactory.eu
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CESTIM

CESTIM, Centro Studi Immigrazione, that means Immigration Study Center, is a non-profit association, founded in Verona in 1990.
The aims of Cestim are:
- to promote human rights and social solidarity in relation to immigration issues.
- to search for and make available fair and appropriate information on immigration issues. This is meant to prevent and eradicate possible prejudices that may cause misconception within public opinion while forcing immigrants in situations of social exclusion.
- to facilitate immigrants’ access to employment, housing, social, health and educational services and their enjoyment of all the rights inherent in full citizenship status.
Cestim has been engaged since 1998, both in the capital city and in approximately 30 municipalities in the provinces of Verona and Vicenza, in various activities, but the main goal concerns the school integration of pupils who are children of immigrants. The activities involve both volunteers and young graduates working on collaboration contracts (more than 100 each year).
The activities are implemented in partnership with more than 70 schools and volunteers and collaborators work in 180 school complexes providing more than 35.000 hours of teaching.

www.cestim.it 
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University of Jaén

The University of Jaén and all staff members share the following values, which differentiate the university and single it out as an institution that is socially responsible and focused on providing value to its stakeholders:
Focused on the social, economic, and cultural growth of the province of Jaén, acting as a creator of and driving force behind the prosperity and wellbeing of the inhabitants of this area, providing assistance and answers to problems that affect them.
Institutional vision. We strive for the image of the university to appear strong in all initiatives undertaken with any person or institution with whom we engage. We complete all of our assigned functions and care about the results obtained. The interests of individuals and stakeholders are governed by those of the university in general.
Internationalization. We are constantly looking to open new horizons around the globe without losing touch with our local roots.
Dedication to service. We monitor the quality of the services and functions that we offer in order to constantly improve, applying innovative solutions that lead to a simplification of processes and provide increased value to all of those who make use of them.
Flexibility and the ability to adapt. We foster the development of new initiatives that facilitate the institution’s adaptation to the unexpected needs of society and its stakeholders via sustainable and innovative solutions.
Planning and focusing on results. We respond to changes in our environment, to the progression and development of the performance of our institution, and to the results of our performance, adjusting, anticipating, and planning our response to the current and future needs of our stakeholders.
Fostering a culture of entrepreneurship. We understand entrepreneurship in an all-around way, as a way to approach life, of pushing forward new trends spurring creativity, offering new ideas, responding to problems, and integrating all of this into the comprehensive education provided to students.
Accountability and transparency. As a public institution, we care about and make an effort to provide information, across all organizational levels, on what we do, how we do it, what financing we use to do it, and the outcomes obtained.
Regard for diversity. We are a multicultural, inclusive university that values diversity, meets special educational needs, and respects and fosters the comparison of differing points of view and the integration of all persons, regardless of their race, religion, age, gender, or sexual orientation.
Commitment to raising social awareness about gender equality. Socially, we are point of reference when it comes to achieving effective equality among men and women by involving all persons and levels at the university.
Sustainable organization. In of our processes and activities we have the objective of achieving the best results, with the minimum resources, and the maximum satisfaction of personnel, with an eye on the sustainability of the institution and of all of its personnel.

https://www.ujaen.es/
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T-hap

T-hap LTD (www.t-hap.com) is a dynamic umbrella organization that brings together a consortium of global professionals' expertise. Our overarching objective is to amplify the prospects for wellness in every facet of people's lives. We are committed to forging and enriching the state of well-being for individuals, professionals, and communities alike.
Our fields of expertise:
Wellbeing in education
Socio-emotional learning
Empowerment
Research
EU project management


www.t-hap.com
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Lovre School

Since 2015, our schol was one of the 150 schools in Croatia that was choosen to be the experimental schools in pilot project E-schools. It was a project that lasted four years and through which our school reached the highest level of digital maturity that the project envisaged. In addition to being equipped with a strong network, teachers have undergone numerous trainings on the use of technology in teaching and participated in research provided by the pilot project. How successful the pilot project was is also shown by the fact that in 2020 it received the Regiostars award Projekt e-Škole dobitnik nagrade Europske komisije – RegioStars – e-Škole (e-skole.hr) as the best project in the field of education in this part of Europe. So we are really lucky to have well trained staff, teachers who are willing to learn and accept new approaches in learning.
In 2022, we implemented the Local Action "Gastrodiplomacy at the School of Happy Children". The local action is an integral part of the INCluDE Project - interdepartmental cooperation in the empowerment of citizens of third countries and is financed from the funds of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and co-financed from the Fund for Asylum, Migration and Integration of the European Union. The reason for applying to the Project, which was published by the Office for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, was the number of our refugee students and their parents who come from Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Ukraine and their good involvement in our education system and our school through many years of experience in working with children and their parents. The goal of our action is to strengthen intercultural relations between parents and students, reduce prejudices against refugees, and shape a more tolerant attitude towards people from other cultures. Through a local action, we encouraged parents of asylum seekers to be better involved in the life and work of the school and their empowerment, and better acceptance of asylum seekers by the local community. In children, we wanted to encourage the development of self-confidence and involvement in activities with children outside the school premises.
In 2023. our school was a partner in the Erasmus + project STEAM in Times . All our teachers are experts in their subject with academic degree. Cooperation between teachers is excellent, our school is the organizer of competitions in biology at the county level. Representatives of students and teachers from more than 100 schools in Zagreb come to our school. The success of such events depends on the teamwork of all school employees, and so far we have always been successful.

www.os-lovre-pl-matacica.hr

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.


UPWELL: Teachers UPskilling for WELL-being in multicultural classrooms
Project number: 2023-1-IT02-KA220-SCH-000161081

Join the conversation using our hashtags:

#UPWELL | #schoolwellbeing | #teacherswellbeing | #inclusiveschool


     We encourage educators, policymakers, and stakeholders to follow the progress of the UPWELL project and engage with our community. Together, we can shape the future of multicultural education across Europe.

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