The project “EU Education Agenda for Intercultural City Development”

ended

The project aims to promote EU Educational policies in the sphere of intercultural education by sharing the best practices in intercultural incentives, social inclusion, and intercultural intelligence development approaches towards fostering a joint learning on the successful integration of migrants. This project is designed as a set of educational services and activities for a target group of undergraduate, and graduate students, educators, and decision-makers who interact with migrants, IDPs, national minorities, and international students. The region has become sensitive to growing numbers of migrants and internally displaced people (IDPs) due to the conflict with the Russian Federation. Historically the Sumy city is multilinguistic and hosts different groups of national and cultural minorities that require more attention each year. The intercultural education is a tool for the transformation of the possible threats and risks of migration to the opportunities brought with diversity opened for the local community. Sumy State University (SSU) is one of the leaders in Ukraine in terms of the number of international students. That allows sharing the best practices among the majority of the comers for the benefits of the local community and the positive image of Ukraine. The intercultural educational policy focuses on social cohesion improvement by combating social isolation and inequality. There is a shortage of courses for the adults in the city in a sphere of migrants’ adaptation and for trainers who work with IDPs and migrants, as well as for graduates and undergraduates that are involved in education internalization. Most of the programs in Economics & Management are internalized at SSU, meaning that international students and residents are enrolled in one class / course. That arises new challenges of integration, and intercultural intelligence training programs are in high demand.