Pescara: second project meeting in Italy - Activities

Comenius Multilateral project "HiP" (History in the Present)

Pescara report (11-15^th March 2013) (I)

By Ms. Rossella Cianci

The preparation  for this meeting began many weeks before our guest’s arrival! Mr. Bruno Garelli and I were both excited and a bit worried in deciding what activities would have best met our foreign friends’ approval and engagement. Moreover it took quite a long time to organise the work the students had to prepare for this meeting, that’s why we spent many afternoons at school! We had to share ideas, information and who was supposed to do what…. The students’ parents were involved too in order to be informed on the best way to welcome and put up the foreign teenage guests, particularly the ones with special needs.

Once the preparatory work was set, we were ready and eager to begin!

Sunday, 10 March the French and Polish delegations arrived in Pescara at 19:45 by coach from Rome. Everything went well with the Host-Guest matching and so we teachers could relax a bit waiting for the following days….

Monday, 11 March: The meeting at school started at 9:00. We all met at the school auditorium and two students welcomed the two delegations with Beethoven’s Hymn To Joy and a speech prepared by them. 

All the teachers and students involved introduced themselves and after that we had a tour of our school. Ms. Elisabetta Bernabeo, the Deputy Headmaster, and Mr. Kenneth Thomson our native English speaker,  welcomed our guests on behalf of our Principal.  At 11:00 we had a break with food and drinks prepared by the Italian host families.

Soon afterwards we saw a modern and revised version of Romeo and Juliet which was great fun. Mr. Garelli organised a Class of Italian for our guests named 'How to survive in Pescara for a week'.

At 13:00 we left school and the students organised some activities by themselves.

19:30: The Turkish delegation arrived safe and sound in Pescara so that we were ready to officially open our days together!

Tuesday, 12 March: We met at school at 9:00 and as a first thing our Principal Mr. Angelo Lucio Rossi warmly welcomed everybody and made a speech with which underlined the importance of these projects, the chance to be in touch with people from abroad as a means to  better understand one another and to grow together beyond prejudices and stereotypes, accepting diversity as a precious opportunity to improve and look at the future with new eyes.

All the members of the  Turkish delegation introduced themselves and soon afterwards each country sang its own national anthem.

Before the break there was the presentation of the works prepared by the Italian students about our school, our city, our region and some monuments in the Chieti and Pescara provinces. 

At 11:30, after eating and drinking something,  we all danced together some folk dances from Abruzzo ('saltarello' and 'quadriglia') 

                                                                                                                                           and two dances from Apulia that have been  very fashionable all over Italy for some years,  'pizzica' and 'taranta'. We also organised a drama class and students learnt how to be more self confident and to challenge their shyness.

Bruno and I were glad because all the students took part to all the activities, always smiling and with great involvement. That was one of our first goals: to make each feel at ease, to give all the chance to make friends and to know one another. 

After lunch, we all met at school once again and the Turkish, French and Polish delegations introduced their power-point presentations related to our common project and we learnt a lot about the culture, history, art and   schooling system of Poland, France and Turkey.

At the end of that very long day we tried to sing an Italian song which was the work of several artists after the terrible earthquake that stuck the city of L'Aquila in 2009. The most important and beautiful city in our region and home to the Abruzzo government underwent lots of sufferings because of this earthquake which caused many deaths, injuries and destruction. At 17:30 our day together came to an end and students organised some activities on their own for the evening.

Here you have a video made with the pictures we took during the activities we organized:  HIP: Italian faces
Another video: Comenius Project: HIP