Intercultural Mentoring for Schools
What is the project about?
Nowadays, cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms is the rule rather than the exception. Often, there is not sufficient time available to adequately respond to migrant pupils’ needs and contexts. In order to assist these children in their personal and educational development, we offer “Intercultural Mentoring” for primary and secondary schools in Vienna and St. Pölten, the capital city of Lower Austria.
Our mentors visit "their" class once a week and accompany it for a whole school year (or longer). The pupils benefit from the experiences of our mentors, who bring their own migration story. They have successfully graduated from school in Austria and entered higher education. For pupils, mentors become role models and transmit the value of multilingualism and cultural diversity.
Simultaneously, through their experiences mentors are (more) appreciative of pupils with migration background and their parents. They become mediators between parents, teachers and pupils.
Mentors receive an allowance of € 50 per month for their work at schools. At present, the demand for mentors is rising dramatically. The number of our available mentors is also rising steadily. 30 mentors are currently sharing their experiences with a total of 19 schools. This growth requires increased organizational and financial expenses.
Thus, in order to continue to carry out the project successfully, we need your support!
What happens with the money if financing was successful
The majority of the budget funds will be used for the allowances for the mentors. These receive € 50, - per month.
We regularly invite experts to report at the monthly “reflection”. For this we need a budget of € 200, -.
The project has been carried out successfully for five years now. In the last three years, we received, inter alia, funding from the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs, from the initiative “Vielfalter” and the Büro für Diversität of the city of St. Pölten. Due to the increased demand for mentors we need additional funding for the reimbursement of the mentors’ expenses.
Targets and potential of the project
The project "Intercultural Mentoring for Schools" aims at the advancement and integration of children and young people with migrant backgrounds and a first language other than German. Personal and linguistic support through multilingual mentors with experience of migration can enhance the educational opportunities and success of pupils. Scientific studies and our five years of project experience show that pupils who participate in a mentoring program can greatly benefit from the role model and the company of a mentor. Especially refugee children can receive crucial attention and counselling from the very beginning.
Organizational structure and team-experiences
The project is supported by the association “Plattform für Kulturen, Integration und Gesellschaft” and by the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. The project team is staffed by cultural and social anthropologists with additional professional training. The project manager, Susanne Binder, has been working in the field of intercultural education for almost 20 years. Mentors come from different fields of study; the majority, however, comes from social and cultural anthropology and teacher training programs. Mentors have completed their school career in Austria and therefore know better than any other the challenges, problems and issues of the present school operation, particularly with respect to migrants and German as a second language.
The role of mentors
As part of the mentoring activities, a mentor spends one morning per week in a school where he or she serves as a contact person and a role model for pupils. Through this regular contact, mentors evolve to caregivers for some of the pupils. Since our mentors are students of an Austrian university, they speak German fluently, in addition to their mother tongue, and thus act as a positive example of “living multilingualism”. Mentors not only provide information about vocational and educational opportunities, but also point out that good German language skills and language skills in general are highly relevant and beneficial for their education and future profession.
At each school, an initial consultation with the teacher decides in which form the mentoring activity can be implemented in class (e.g. open teaching, group work, different projects, after-school learning and increasingly also in German language classes). The activities are diverse and often change during the project time - depending on individual requirements and available resources. Sometimes, the mentoring takes place in the classroom; other times, the mentors work with a pupil individually, or in small groups. In addition to supporting understanding of the curricula and homework mentors are also available as interlocutors and confidants for pupils.
Through their presence, mentors are also contact persons for their respective teachers in terms of intercultural learning or specific issues that arise from the context of cultural and linguistic pluralism in the classroom. Last but not least, our mentors also contribute valuable skills in communicating with parents - parents can ask questions of all kinds and mentors act as translators in the context of parent-teacher-days if necessary. Therefore they provide a certain access for non-Austrian parents to the Austrian school system and support them, where necessary, in establishing contacts not only to schools and to the teachers, but also to other institutions that benefit the integration of their children.
Sustainability of the project
Mentors document their mentoring activities based on uniform guidelines and discuss them in groups at monthly “reflection” meetings. Emerging issues and problems are solved together with the project coordinators in order to continuously optimize the mentoring activity. These meetings cover topics prepared in accordance with current developments at Austrian schools, current debates as well as the experiences gained from previous mentoring activities. Mentors submit their documentation at the end of the semester, which is subsequently analysed by the organizational team.
Within the project, we assure that mentors can gain further qualifications and specialist knowledge. They are invited to specific workshops (among others, about "de-radicalization"), to present the project to the wider public, and receive a certificate with a detailed list of their activities at the end of their work. Thus mentors gain recognition for their social commitment and the acquisition of practical experience in the work with pupils.
Projektstandort: Universitätsstraße 7 / 4. Stock, 1010 Wien, Austria