I feel I gained so much...

By Maia Kelly Murphy

At the beginning of the school year, I signed up for the Schools Beyond Borders project, organised by Mr. Oman. I decided to join because the course and topics of discussion within the project sounded really interesting and I wanted to broaden my knowledge on different cultures and schools across Europe. This seemed like a great way to learn about that. I also signed up because I am in Fourth Year and I thought it would be fun to have a group to work with during the year. Throughout the duration of the project, we attended a number of lectures from Professors on things like federalism in Europe and the Bosnian War in the 1990s. These were held on Zoom so that schools from other countries could attend. From these lectures and the Q&A sessions that followed them, I learned a lot about Europe that I didn’t know before. In May, our group flew to Italy to work with a school from Bosnia and one from Italy.

During the trip, the schools worked together on things like a European Youth Pact and a presentation of our combined ideas from our separate project work. The academic work was balanced out with trips and activities. With a hike up the Dolomites, a live music show and visits to local galleries in Val Di Fassa, we had many opportunities to get to know the other schools and share experiences and ideas. From this experience, we gained a lot of skills. An understanding of different cultures and people was formed as well as the organisational skills that come with travelling. Overall, I enjoyed this project and the trip that followed so much and feel I gained so many new experiences and relationships with different people.