The 4° partners meeting of the FRIENDS project – Fostering Resilience, Inclusive Education and Discrimination in Schools has been held on 25th and 26th September 2019, at the Maharishi peace Palace in UK (Rendlesham).
What are the main news and topics discussed during this meeting?
Partners met up in order to commonly review the progress related to the implementation of the Quiet Time/TM programme in the primary and secondary schools of the project.
The schools involved it is good to remember are based in the 4 countries that are part of the project: Italy, United Kingdom, Portugal and Belgium.
The further development of the programme has showed up its consolidation in the educative systems because of its positive impact on the scientific evaluation conducted in each country.
Scientific partners of the project (Universidade do Algarve, ALMA MASTER STUDIORUM-University of Bologna and Maharishi School Trust Limited) in fact developed an assessment programme in order to monitor the impact of this twice a day technique practiced in classrooms. Pre-tests and post-tests have been administered towards students and teachers in order to detect any change in some psychological, social and behavioural indicators before and after the implementation of the Quiet Time programme for schools based on Transcendental Meditation.
All indicators and aspects analysed showed a positive trend both at a personal and environmental level: positive personal and pro-social behaviours increased (as personal satisfaction, concentration, etc.) while negative personal aspects (as anxiety, depression) reported a decrease.
Another important issue discussed is the structure of the final book of the FRIENDS project to be realised as a conclusive result of the implementation phase outlining best practices, experiences to be included in the Policy recommendations to be elaborated to promote innovation in the education field fostering social inclusion at the same time.
The Final conference of the FRIENDS project will be conducted on December 2019 and it will be a unique moment for presenting final results and lessons learned throughout the FRIENDS project experience.
About the project
FRIENDS: Fostering Resilience-Inclusive Education & Non-Discrimination in Schools is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme under the Key Action 3 Support for policy reforms – Social inclusion through education, training and youth.
Partners
The project partnership holds together:
- Coordinator: Fondazione Hallgarten Franchetti – Centro Studi Villa Montesca (Italy)
- Universidade do Algarve (Portugal)
- ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – Università di Bologna (Italy)
- CESIE (Italy)
- Escola Secundária de Loulé (Portugal)
- Municipality of Sacile – Pordenone (Italy)
- Maharishi School Trust Limited (United Kingdom)
- Maharishi Foundation (United Kingdom)
- APEJAA – Associacao de Pais e Encarregados de Educação da Escola Joao Afonsode Aveiro (Portugal)
- Cooperativa Cultural Ciencia e Tecnologia Vedica Maharishi – CCCT (Portugal)
- Associazione Meditazione Trascendentale Maharishi Italia (Italy)
- Civic Association for Communication and Education “Sophia”- ACCESOPHIA (Spain)
- Maharishi Institute of Vedic Science (Belgium)
For further information
Read more about FRIENDS
Visit the FRIENDS website
Follow us on the FRIENDS Facebook page
For general concerns, please contact: irene.pizzo@cesie.org.
