Yenetabet is carrying out a project titled Building Bridges: Good African Parenting In Europe, which is funded by the European Union in line with the inclusion and diversity priority and community building topic of the Erasmus+ Programme. As in the title, the project aims at building cultural bridges between African families and the European society. To this end, it is targeted at improving parents’ assertive communication skills, raising their awareness on children’s rights and eduction, showing them best examples of activities they can do with their children, and informing parents about extra-curricular activities for their children both at school and in their neighborhoods. These targets are designed to increase parents’ interaction with schools and people outside their community, to help them avoid isolating themselves from other communities outside their own, to increase parent-child engagement in terms of interaction and doing activities together, and bring about children’s better inclusion in society.
To achieve the aforesaid objectives, several activities are underway in partnership with two Europan organizaitons- Spelenderwijzer and Parent International (IPA) — that specialize in playful art and science education for children and parent training, respectively. The main activities include: (i) Joint staff training between Yenetabet, Spelenderwijzer, and Parent International; (ii) 10 pilot training workshops for both parents and children whereby: (a) parents learn about general parenting skills, children’s rights, assertive communication, parenting in the digital age, conflict resolution, and children’s learning, and (b) children engage in various playful art and STEM activities including scientific experiments for children; (iii) 3 scale up and multiplier events intended to target a wider group of African parents in Europe building on the pilot workshops and their outcomes. While Ethiopian parents are the target groups during the pilot projects, the overall project aims at reaching more and more parents of African origin and build cultural bridges connecting them with their hosting European communities.
