From Meeting to Friendship

In this study, a project developed within the Erasmus + program whose title is "Democracy in kindergarten 3-6", with several sub-topics from which we decided to promote human values and the development of democratic skills.... [ view full abstract ]

In this study, a project developed within the Erasmus + program whose title is "Democracy in kindergarten 3-6", with several sub-topics from which we decided to promote human values and the development of democratic skills. Trough various activities and incentives with children in everyday activities they realized that we are all different, so we should accept one another. Their questions and conclusions have encouraged us to meet with the children of our two objects ( "Grigor Vitez" and "Vruljica") as well with children from the school "Voštarnica" (schools for children with disabilities) for which we have contacted professor Darja Švorinić .  For the meeting we have chosen the park as a place where children can spontaneously and freely mingle and get to know eachother . Children are spontaneously started the game and try to start communicating with children from the school, but we noticed the difficulties in communication with each other, and we decided to intervene; We encourage children to sing together songs that they know, encouraged them to help each other using a device in the park (swings, slides ...). With litlle assistance  of professors and educators children continued to play. while we observed the interaction of children we noticed that some children were reluctant to children with disabilities, while a handful of children engaged in the game. After meeting we return to kindergarten and we used incentive  from the park and started to talk with children  about their experiences. Their reactions were varied by presenting personal experiences with children with disabilities. The project is still in progress and we have planned the following activities involving mutual visits, joint workshops and activities in which we will develop tasks of  raising  awareness and acceptance of diversity and encourage tolerance.

 Keywords: tolerance, diversity, relationships, acceptance, empathy