Recipes on creativity in education
2010-06-21
“It’s good to know English so that I can talk to my music colleagues later when I tour the world.”
The words come from a twelve-year-old Roma boy who attended the Cerain summer school in northern Serbia last year. The event was organized by the Swedish NGO Terraforming and provided Roma children with both music instruction and English language instruction. The children were aged between 11 and 14 and were already talented musicians. The course also involved discussions on human rights and democracy.
“If discrimination is to be stopped, the children must begin believing in themselves,” says Misko Stanisic of Terraforming. “The fact that one of the participants saw himself as a touring musician was the greatest response we could have hoped for after the course.”
Combining music and culture was a successful approach that Terraforming would like to share with others focusing in their work on vulnerable children. In June, therefore, the organization will be conducting a number of seminars for decision-makers, opinion-makers, and representatives of NGOs and schools. The idea is to network, exchange ideas and bring together successful methods in a ‘Cerain Cookbook’. It will include a collection of recipes on how to use creativity and culture to help the young. The local ministry of education will pay for the printing and the cookbook will be distributed in schools and at libraries.