Intercultural education through the subject “Cultural and Spiritual Heritage of the Region” (CSHR)

The aim of this activity is to improve social relationships of post-conflict societies in Croatia, and to allow children who live in multicultural and multiethnic communities to learn more about the culture and customs of “the others”. The subject started as a project of a Croatian NGO known as Nansen Dialogue Centre. Its implementation is monitored by the Education and Teacher Training Agency of the Republic of Croatia.

Age of the students: 11-15 (grades 5 through 8)

Methods used: workshops, projects, interviews, portfolio

Topics covered: Relations among people, Active listening, Communication, Tradition and customs, Religious customs, History of the region, Stereotypes, Prejudices, Interculturality, Identity, etc.

Additional annual topics (a basis for projects in all schools involved):

• 2013/14 Languages of the Region
• 2014/15 Our Contribution to Intercultural Europe
• 2015/16 Migrations

Nansen Dialogue Centre also organizes one bigger and one smaller students' meeting per year. During the big one, a school gets to be the host to about 200 students from the CSHR network. The last “smaller” meeting was held in November 2015 in Osijek, at which about 70 students participated at an event called “Taste of Home”, where several asylum seekers prepared typical dishes of the Middle East and Africa. Knowing that preparing and tasting food gets people closer, the aim of this event was to remove the potential perception of immigrants as a threat, and help students see “real people” in them, trying to sympathize and understand the immigrants’ problems better. By talking to asylum seekers, a rather human perspective was given, which will hopefully guide the students towards avoiding radical opinions and solutions of the immigrant crisis.

Dalj Elementary School (Osnovna škola Dalj) is one of the 23 schools where the CSHR program has been implemented. The school still has separate schooling for Serbian minority, in Serbian language and Cyrillic script, which was one of the demands for the peaceful reintegration after the Balkan wars in 1990s. In practice, this means that children from two ethnic groups (Croats and Serbs, namely) spend the most of their time at school separated. The best illustration for this is the fact that even extracurricular activities are divided, so the school has two choirs, one in Croatian and one in Serbian language. Hungarian minority is also present there, but they attend the regular Croatian program, with only Hungarian language and culture taught as an optional subject.

Contact details:

Zagrebačka 2B 31226 Dalj Croatia

Tomislav Vuković
Email: tomislav.vukovic12@skole.hr 
Email: ured@os-dalj.skole.hr 
Tel: +385 91 791 5610
Tel: +385 31 590 195 (School)
To find out more on the Dalj Elementary School, follow this link

Nansen Dialogue Centre
Cvjetkova 32
31000 Osijek
Croatia

Ivana Milas
Email: ndcosijek@nansen-dialogue.net  
Tel: +385 31 494 257
Tel: +385 31 494 258