Between December 2005 and May 2006, a number of Maltese students joined others from Cyprus and Italy to learn more about an enlarged Europe.

“Sharing Europe” was an educational project supported by the European Union and run by the Centro Regionale d’Intervento per la Cooperazione (CRIC) in Italy, the Federation of the Environment and Ecological Organisations in Cyprus, and the Third World Group in Malta.

It enabled the students and their teachers to learn more about the process of European enlargement and to gain a better understanding of the opportunities created as well as the shared threats and social and environmental challenges that each country is facing.

The first phase adopted a methodology that encouraged the participants to research those aspects of enlargement which they found most interesting such as educational possibilities, employment, European youth and relationships, geography, travel, sports, media and youth culture.

The second phase consisted of a peer to peer approach where insights gained from the first phase helped to guide the students to elaborate on what they learned and their own feelings about enlargement – their ideas and knowledge about “new” and “old” member-states and their views on the meaning of “Europe”.

The Maltese students who took part attend St Edward’s College in Birgu, Erin Serracino Inglott Girls’ Secondary in Bormla, Dun Guzepp Zammit Boys Junior Lyceum in Hamrun, F.X. Attard Boys’ Secondary in Marsa, the Junior College in Msida, Guzè Galea Boys’ Secondary in Qormi, Carlo Diacono Girls’ Junior Lyceum in Zejtun, and the Centre for the Hearing Impaired in Valletta.

The students will be meeting their counterparts from Cyprus and Italy at a final conference to be held in Malta on 24 and 25 May. For further information contact [email protected].