Askøy videregående is an upper secondary school located on the island of Askøy on the west coast of Norway. The school offers both general and vocational studies for over 510 students, with a staff of 85 people. We have Norwegian students, students of different multicultural backgrounds and exchange students during a regular school year. In two years from now, our school will be twice the size of today, with twice the number of students and staff. The construction of the new school will start this summer, and we are all looking forward to seeing it finished.

However, a larger school also means new challenges in relation to working with a larger number of students with different needs and backgrounds. Our main motivation for participating in this project is to increase awareness among our students around such important issues as migration and extremism. With so many different backgrounds and values among our students it is especially important for us to work towards achieving more tolerance, acceptance and understanding when it comes to meeting other cultures and living our lives together.

Our school has students coming from our island, where fish industry and agriculture have been the main economic activities. However, we are located just fifteen minutes away from Bergen, which is Norway’s second largest city. So, we also have students from the city, with a more urban lifestyle. Finally, our school has students who are asylum seekers and refugees from many different countries as well. This comprises a huge spectrum of personalities, needs and schooling, which is a daily challenge for us. Therefore, a project like this can give us an opportunity to study two issues that can help us to improve the quality of life for many in our community.

The key people in charge of the project will be the Principal as the legal representative. The contact person will be Fanny Dalis, who is both an English and Spanish teacher, as well as the MOT coach. MOT is an extra-curricular programme we have at our school with the philosophy of “developing robust youth, who include all by strengthening awareness and courage” (mot.no).

In relation to our experience with Erasmus+, we had a project called “Pedagogical and Cultural Approach to Inclusion of Foreign Cultures” during the period of 2016-2018. This was an important project for our school where both teachers and students learnt about multiculturalism and integration, and shared their personal experiences related to this topic.