26-27 September 2019
MATE Project
The 2nd Transnational Meeting of MATE (“Mingle, Acknowledge & Trust Events”), an innovative, studentcentered approach to intercultural skills acquisition for local students and young migrants (Erasmus+ programme, KA203, December 2018-2020), took place on 26-27 September 2019, at the premises of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.
All partners (M.M.C. Management Centre – coordinator and Cyprus University of Technology from Cyprus, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki from Greece, Folkuniversitetet Stiftelsen Kursverksamheten Vid Uppsala Universitet from Sweden, FH Joanneum Gesellschaft mbH from Austria, Eurocircle Association from France, and University of Alicante from Spain) met for the second time to review the progress of the project’s ongoing intellectual outputs’ activities, elaborate on upcoming intellectual outputs’ activities and monitor the project’s dissemination and quality assurance activities. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
On the first day of the meeting, M.M.C. made an overview of the project’s progress, giving then the floor to the partners responsible for the coordination of the activities for the first two intellectual outputs. More specifically, the University of Alicante summarised the results of the National Reports developed by partners on common forms of Hate Speech both online and offline in their respective countries, in order for an aggregate European report to be prepared soon (IO1) while Eurocircle presented the latest version on the Intercultural Skills Assessment Online Tool, in order for partners to reflect on the provided questionnaire and for the tool to be finalised (IO2). Subsequently, the Cyprus University of Technology presented the first steps for the preparation of the “Report Racism” curriculum and training material (IO3) and M.M.C. took again the floor for giving to partners a general idea of the Methodological Guide for the MATE Facilitators and the relevant activities for the “MATEvents” (IO4). For this reason, a workshop was conducted at the end of the first day for partners to select the “human universals” on which the MATE activities would be based for improving the intercultural skills of students of different cultural backgrounds.
At the beginning of the second day, M.M.C. elaborated on the fourth intellectual output and conducted a second workshop on the structure of the MATE activities, asking for feedback on the provided template. The coordinator gave also information on the Learning Activity of the project, which will take place in parallel with the 3 rd Transnational Meeting in Marseille, France as well as on the six Multiplier Events, which will be held at national level, concluding with a final Conference on the project’s results in Cyprus. FH Joanneum proceeded then with a presentation on the quality assurance of the project, the relevant indicators, and aspects to be amended in order to achieve better monitoring of project’s quality. Eurocircle concluded the meeting with a presentation on the dissemination activities of project, focusing on its online presence and on newsletters and press releases for the project. At the end of the day, there was a general discussion and overall evaluation of the two-day meeting.
The MATE project is funded with the support of the European Commission