Migration often enters schools as a word without a face: a headline, a stereotype, a shadow. Over the last year, the GET Bulgaria team worked closely with schools to change that.
Through global citizenship education and project resources, migration became a human story – one that can be understood, felt, and shared. And through encounters with real people – people carrying with them journeys, separations, hopes, and new beginnings – the topic came alive.
Musa is a 13-year-old boy who fled the war in Syria. He spoke to sixth-graders in the village of Bata, Pomorie municipality, sharing how he left home at the age of 12, how his family is now scattered between Lebanon and Cyprus, and how he dreams of returning to Syria one day to embrace his parents and siblings again. He has spent a year living in a social care institution in Bulgaria; he has learned the language, made new friends, yet still longs for the place he once called home.
After the meeting, one girl said, “I didn’t know migrants had families like ours”.
Ms. Ginka Nedelcheva, teacher at “Hristo Botev” Primary School in Bata, added: “Their stereotypes fell apart right before my eyes”.
At the same school, students met Yuliana Barabash, a Ukrainian woman who moved to Bulgaria for the love of her life, a Bulgarian-Turkish man from the village of Bata. She shared how she learned Bulgarian with a dictionary, how her family celebrates two sets of holidays, and how the difference can be a bridge rather than a wall. “Home is where there is understanding,” Yuliana said.
After the meeting, one student wrote: “Difference is like two songs that sound more beautiful together”.
From the students’ feedback and actions after the activities, teachers noticed that:
Stoyanka Roeva, teacher at “Georgi Rakovski” Primary School in the village of Galabets, shared: “They stepped into someone else’s shoes – and it changed them”. They also observed more questions (and fewer fears), more arguments (and fewer assumptions), more empathy (and less division) among the students.
Some students said to others, “I would leave too, if I had to save the people I love” and “Every person carries their own story. We can’t judge it if we don’t know it”. To teachers, these sentences feel not just like an educational outcome, but a human one.
To deal with the topic of migration, in addition to direct testimonies and GET resources, teachers used several methods such as:
At the end of each lesson, one question remained: “What would you take with you if you had to leave?” The answers were different, yet equally sincere:
“A photo of my grandmother. She is my home”.
“My notebook – so I remember who I am”.
“Only my family. Nothing else”.
Global Citizenship Education helps children understand the world rather than fear it. It teaches them to see the person before the label. To recognize the story behind the journey. To become part of a more compassionate “we”. Follow us to read more stories from European schools and use GET resources to bring global issues to your class.
