 | | Honourable Mrs Minister,
Honourable Mrs Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth,
Honourable Mr Director of Primary Education,
Dear Partners,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to accept your invitation to attend and deliver a brief address within the context of the concluding conference aiming to inform and present the deliverables of the project titled “Learning Greek at the Nursery School: Support to Nursery School Teachers and Third-Country Nationals”.
The project implementation, which started on 1st October 2022 and has a completion date on 30th September 2024, involves a Budget of €214,000 and the final beneficiary is the Department of Primary Education of the Cyprus Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth.
First of all, I would like to thank and congratulate the Minister of Education, Sport and Youth, as well as the Department of Primary Education for their willingness to participate in this kind of actions and projects. The implementation of training and education programmes, workshops about the Cypriot culture and society and various other actions promoting the interaction and active participation of children who are third-country nationals in the local society does not only lay solid foundations to fight segregation, exclusion and discrimination, but it is also a springboard to the progress, welfare and modernisation of a society.
For us as the Managing Authority of the European Union Home Affairs Funds, this particular project is not simply important, but necessary. Its significance consists in the fact that it focuses on strengthening and supporting nursery schools, with the aim to properly prepare and provide the required support to minors who are third-country nationals attending these schools, to be smoothly integrated in the school environment as much as possible, and consequently in the society in which they live.
In order to make myself clear, the said project aims to produce support material, so as to facilitate the work of nursery school teachers in the daily needs that arise when receiving and teaching children whose mother tongue is different than the language spoken at the school and who learn Greek as a second language. This is a project with benefits for both young children who are third-country nationals, as well as nursery school teachers.
Through the support of European resources, the project results have proven beneficial on the short and long term for the integration of TCN children in the school environment and the Cypriot society in general and they are pivotal for the development of mutual value among citizens – both Cypriots and Third-Country Nationals.
The project is implemented within the context of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and it is jointly financed by the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus.
Dear all,
The new 2021-2027 programming period is at the implementation phase and it is undoubtable that such projects relating to the integration of third-country national children in local society are a priority for us.
To conclude, as the European Funds Unit of the Ministry of Interior, we would like to ensure that, by using European resources, our aim is to continue and also to intensify our efforts to be by the side of each stakeholder, so as to contribute in the best possible way to the challenges arising from the asylum, migration and integration sector, by implementing projects aspiring to create a society which will respect and use – on an educational level – diversity, heterogeneity and multiculturalism; a society which will be free from xenophobia and racist behaviours, a society which will strengthen migrants’ confidence and combat isolation and exclusion potentially experienced by migrants.
Thank you for your attention |