Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film!

Supporter: Erasmus+

• Grant: 356 488 EUR

Partner Countries: Hungary, Bulgaria, Netherlands, Lithuania                                                             

Leader: Palantír Film Visual Anthropological Foundation

The project will last 36 months, from 2022 to 2024.

Short Summary:

The project’s objectives are to help secondary school teachers to connect to and guide young people. This we hope to achieve by the making of a new method to highlight the importance of the social issues, using documentary films – helped along with collecting knowledge in the field, film screenings and workshops, and collecting data through students’ feedback, in order to produce effective tools to bring students closer to reality in a protected environment and thus offer a model to the teachers and other educators.

The project’s primary target group are secondary school teachers, willing to tackle social issues in class and open to using documentary in education.

By developing a curriculum for the use of documentary in schools we hope to give a useful tool for teachers and educators in order to form young people’s minds – to lead them back to reality before it gets too late.

We want to gather teachers who are curious about new methods, are interested in films and like to watch them.

We want to create a platform that inspires participants of the project and possible future users, and creates awareness and build resilience and knowledge for a conducive teaching and learning environment.

We also wish:

-  to foster the use of documentaries which give a sensitive and sensual portrayal of segments of reality with loveable, real- life protagonists and - in general - have an anthropological approach.

-  Develop a method for teachers to improve and maximize their knowledge.

-  Introduce a new mindset - use the potential of the documentaries.

-  Students - soft skills development, fostering mutual understanding.

-  Teachers can understand better the new generation - intergenerational gap decrease

We are planning to prepare a whole range of project results:

-  a curriculum (R1)

-  an online database (R2)

-  a tutorial video about the organizing of field trips (R3)

-  a professional video diary of the project (R4)

-  a pedagogical manual (R5)

-  a survey on students’ viewing habits (R6)

-  a short training course for teachers, adapted to 4 countries (R7)

-   a manual (a multimedia tool) about student feedback (R8)

-  a toolkit/exercise book on good practices (R9)

We also plan 5 short training activities, and 8 multiplier events that will help us in disseminating project results.

Go-Live Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film! Project

The first meeting of the Magic of the Frame’s partnership took place in Budapest, Hungary on 21 and 22 of March 2022.

Through introducing a new mindset - use the potential of the documentaries in schools, the partnership has the ambition to develop useful methodology and tools for teachers and educators in support of their work with young people – to help them see and learn about the reality as “it is”.

The project started on 1st of January 2022. During the period of three months before the kick-off in Budapest, as partners, we have organized the start of this innovative, challenging but so inspiring and promising project. Defining in details our activities and plans, clarifying our goals and discussing how to make the project more useful for the final beneficiaries - teachers in secondary schools, etc. were among the activities our project team was engaged with.

The kick-off Project Management meeting opened space for discussion of many important topics as clarification of the project management rules, contract regulations, budget flow and reports, update of the project plan and gantt chart, distribution of activities and responsibilities, discussion of the project management manual (including evaluation and monitoring methodology), risk management, monitoring and evaluation.

Another important part of the Project meeting were the discussions on the methodology update based on preliminary research, forming a common knowledge base as a starting point, how to choose the documentaries, where is the cross point of the different points of view, etc.

The all 9 partners from 4 European Union countries took part as follows: Palantír Film Vizuális Antropológiai Alapítvány, Hungary (lead partner), Changes & Chances, Netherlands, Civil Initiatives Association - Lovech, Bulgaria, CROMO Alapitvany, Hungary, Kürt Alapítvány, Hungary, Professional school of veterinary medicine " Prof. dr. Dimitar Dimov", Bulgaria, Stichting Kunstzinnige Vorming Rotterdam (SKVR), Netherlands, VŠĮ Nepatogus kinas / PO Inconvenient Film, Lithuania, Youth Centre Babilonas, Lithuania.

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The project Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film! is funded by Erasmus+ Programme 

under contract N: 2021-1-HU01-KA220-SCH-000029686.

Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film! Project - second project management meeting in Bulgaria

The second project management meeting of Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film! Project took place in Lovech, Bulgaria between 9 and 11.11.2022. During the 3 days meeting the 9 partners - Palantír Film Vizuális Antropológiai Alapítvány, Hungary (lead parthner), Changes & Chances, Netherlands, Civil Initiatives Association - Lovech, Bulgaria, CROMO Alapitvany, Hungary, Kürt Alapítvány, Hungary, Professional school of veterinary medicine " Prof. dr. Dimitar Dimov", Bulgaria, Stichting Kunstzinnige Vorming Rotterdam (SKVR), Netherlands, VŠĮ Nepatogus kinas / PO Inconvenient Film, Lithuania, Youth Centre Babilonas, Lithuania - from 4 countries mapped the results and discussed the 4 lesson plans prepared in the previous project phase. Partners from each project country presented their selected documentary films as well as the lesson plans related to the selected topics/movies.

Dívák/Divas is the Hungarian team’s choice of documentary - https://vimeo.com/531191141 - “Belvárosi Tanoda” is a school where a last chance is given to misfit teenagers, banned from all other schools, to finish their studies and graduate. This is where he meets three strikingly different girls: Szani, Tina, and Emese, the Divas.

The Netherlands team presented the documentary film A Brothers Journey - https://vimeo.com/740914394/56e902d2ee - two brothers, fled together from Syria lose track of each other in the Dutch asylum system.

The Lithuanian team lesson plan is based on the documentary Seahorse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSmxiPsbiQ where “The seahorse in the title refers not only to the creature that remains upright in the water, but also to the area of our brain, the hippocampus, where our memories are stored. This balanced documentary shows how water can take on a new meaning over time, and how swimming has become Hanan’s way of coping with trauma.”*

As final result of several discussions among the partners, the Bulgarian team has selected Bayer and the Bees documentary - https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bees+documentaries&view=detail&mid=E091447B747C876BE82EE091447B747C876BE82E&FORM=VIRE - insecticides are sometimes necessary in farming however some substances, like neonicotinoids, kill not only pests but bees as well. Scientists around the world have found that neonicotinoids are the main cause of mass bee deaths. One of the main manufacturers of these pesticides - the Bayer Group is coming under pressure.

During the three days in Bulgaria, 4 developed lesson plans have been presented and by the 9 partners of Magic of the Frame - Teach with documentary film! As a final result all of the plans received suggestions and ideas for improvement before the pilot beginning. The partners agreed on the schedule the lesson plans would start their pilot phase.

Particular attention was paid to the 8 teachers who took part in the meeting and their opinion and recommendations.

The project management meeting finished with some particular project management discussions regarding the next steps, narrative and financial reporting.

Project: Together towards green, sustainable and digital society of Nordic-Baltic region 2021-2022 

https://www.unsdg.ee/nordplus-adult-programm/?fbclid=IwAR2FbWNQ6zsji4MGb3PbkFcwip7afuBCb27-HDpwzP9KCgUhVPeG9bjeLnE  

The main goal of the project “Together towards green, sustainable and digital society of Nordic-Baltic region” is to promote green growth and sustainability in the Nordic-Baltic region by reaching the SDGs and regional cooperation in building the green future of the region. This project aims is to increase knowledge of young adults, teachers, NGO experts and representative of vulnerable groups about UN SDGs in the context of globalized world, as well as enhance their capacity as well as enhance their capacity to be an agents of change and their engagement towards achieving greener and sustainable lifestyle in their daily activities.

Besides creating a thematic international network of Nordic-Baltic actors, project aims to increase the competence and knowledge of the project target groups (young adults, representative of vulnerable groups (migrants, refugees and minorities) also partner organizations on sustainable development in general and on cross-cutting themes of UN’s Agenda 2030 SDG.

In addition, the project aims to empower and emphasize the role of NGO educators and teachers at public schools as active and important change makers in the field of sustainable development by increasing their capacity and cooperation opportunities.

Project’s activities include an international conference & kick off meeting, 2 transnational partners and experts meetings and 2 workshops sessions including local study visits, development of educational toolkit and web-resource, communication activities related with promotion of sustainable development themes.

Project includes partners from six countries mainly from NGOs, Youth and educational centre. In Nordic-Baltic countries we had a sustainable partner who acts as the change maker and facilitator of the national network. During the project, the purpose is to further enhance the network and make it a well functioning and solid platform on sustainable development education.

ACTION PLAN:
– International gathering and Kick off Meeting  (5 participants per country and 20 locals)
26-29. August 2021, Narva, Estonia – Conference “Global Conversation 2022” under titel “Contributing to a good Life in a Sustainable Nordic – Baltic Region by implementation of UN’s Agenda 2030”

– Workshop sessions (4 participants per country +1 expert)
3 -5. December 2021, Vantaa, Finland – The first workshop sessions on green growth, climate change and Clean Baltic Sea themes.
8-10. April 2022, Vilnius, Lithuania – Second workshop sessions on gender equality, digital society, sustainable welfare and accessible education

– Transnational partners and experts meetings (2 participants per country)
11-13. March 2022, Copenhagen, Denmark – First partners & experts meeting
10-12. June 2022, Mälmo, Sweden – Second partners & experts meeting
5-6. August 2022, Riga, Latvia – Third partners & experts meeting  

Main practical outcomes:
– SDG Network
– Toolkit
– Web-resource
– New skills, knowledge, best practices.

Project results:

• The Target group has learned how UN SDGs could be achieved on local and international level and how they can contribute to UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development implementation and will describe their role in the achievement of SDGs.

• Gained theoretical knowledge and practical skills on how to utilize the existing international and regional human rights and educational instruments to prepare and implement youth and adults-friendly policies in content of sustainable development education,

Gained new skills and knowledge in the themes of all UN SDGs and especially on green growth,

climate change, clean Baltic Sea, gender equality, digital society and tools of good governance and sustainable welfare.

• Improved their understanding about UN Sustainable Development Goals and “Generation 2030 programme”, importance of local activities and regional cooperation, sustainability and adults learning empowerment in the context of regional processes and international politics.

• Built a network of active young adults, educators and representatives of vulnerable groups, also civil society organisations, government representatives and other relevant organisations.

• Useful educational toolkit (short educational films, training manual) and web-resource, for adult learners, vulnerable groups and experts working in the various fields of SDGs themes.

The Project is financed by Nordplus Adult programm of Nordic Council and international partners