Description of activities
The Gift a Poem campaign was warmly received from our network this year as well. School activities were implemented (in 34 schools of all levels and types of education) in two ways: either students copied poems by hand or they wrote poems/haikus themselves, using the proposed stationary or creating their own cards. Additionally, teachers integrated poetry in the daily teaching practice of various subjects and cross-curricular poetry workshops of different school subjects, took place. The poems were gifted to classmates, teachers, family members, friends, students of neighboring schools, schools for Children with Special Needs, senior high schools for adults, people with health problems (highlighting the great power of hope in life), to their beloved persons, Local Open Care Centre for the Elderly (founding and nurturing relationships between generations) and Detention Centers. Students, through the poems they had written, expressed their empathy and concerns about social problems (violence, bullying, femicide), global challenges (climate change) and life itself. Students in kindergarten learned how to distinguish a poem from another text. Starting from the word ‘friendship’ and adding different words, with the help of the English teacher, they formed a poem. Videos were created with implemented activities or Web 2.0 tools were used like padlet, word clouds, e-books to demonstrate students work. Some students wrote verses-poems and spread them as a ‘laundry’ of poems in the schoolyard. In some schools, poems were read in front of the whole school in the morning or during the breaks. Upper secondary students, studied poems of Zbigniew Herbert and inspired by them, they created their own works and put them in the school library. Some students looked up for poems that included the world “poetry” in their title, while others organized a ‘Reading Marathon’; some students created papyri, written the poems and wrapped them with beautiful ribbons. The students of the library group, in Vocational upper secondary school, copied and then photocopied their favorite poem, read it at the morning assembly and gave it away to students, teachers and other staff; For our schools, poetry unites people, promotes intercultural dialogue, conveying a “modus vivendi” message for the humanity in contemporary life. Students’ views: “This project fills our hearts with sensitivity, empathy and wisdom, values which are so much-needed in our days”. “We are impressed that our action has touched other people so much”.
Schools involved
- 1st Experimental Junior High School of Maroussi, Attiki
- 1st Junior High School of Gerakas, Attiki
- 1st Junior High School of Korinthos
- 1st Primary School of Irakleio, Attiki 1st Senior High School of Argos, Argolida
- 1st Vocational School of Agia Paraskevi, Attiki
- 2nd Junior High School of Almyros, Magnisias
- 2nd Senior High School of Gerakas
- 2nd Junior High School of Chalkida
- 2nd Vocational School for Children with Special Needs of Eastern Thessaloniki
- 2nd Experimental Primary School of Rhodes
- 2nd Model Senior High School οf Thessaloniki “White Tower”
- 3rd Junior High School of Kalamata 3rd Kindergarten of Gerakas, Attiki
- 3rd Vocational School of Acharnes, Attiki
- 4th Junior High School of Keratsini
- 4th Primary School of Nafplio
- 4th Primary School of Stavroupoli, Thessaloniki
- 5th Primary School of Ioannina
- 8th Primary School of Kifissia, Attiki
- 9th Primary School of Mytilene, Lesvos
- 11th Primary School of Kalamata
- 14th Kindergarten of Evosmos, Thessaloniki
- 15th Primary School of Chalkida Anavryta Model Senior High School, Attiki
- Aristotelio College, Senior High School, Thessaloniki
- Arsakeio Senior Hihg School of Psychiko
- Delasalle Primary School, Thessaloniki
- Hatzivei Junior High School, Attiki
- Hatzivei Primary School, Attiki
- Hellenic College of Thessaloniki
- Senior High School Intercultural Junior High Scool of Evosmos
- Thessaloniki International School of Athens
- Attiki Klimatias kindergarten
- Ioannina Primary school of Vrontou, Pieria
