META aims at fostering intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding and social inclusion among children belonging to minorities groups aged between 5-10 by using an innovative educative methodology based on the practice of the arts  to learn curricular subject while fostering social inclusion and multicultural values.

The main spaces of action of META are therefore:

• Schools, and in particular primary Schools with their own School community composed of pupils, their families, teachers and the rest of the staff
• Local communities, where individuals, families and organized groups of different origins live and interact together
• Organized bodies of artists, education experts and researchers, community leaders, active citizens, decision makers that can make the difference in their own local and national communities
• The EU decision makers and experts that can help us mainstream META in education policies Europe-wide.

META is also a project of intercultural education since it reckons the necessity to make formal, non-formal and informal education more culturally open as well as a response to an increasing trend of racial intolerance against the migrant and national ethnic minorities in several European countries.

According to the European Parliament, “Intercultural Education is defined as a pedagogic approach aimed at fomenting a tolerant and sensitive attitude to ethnic, cultural and religious differences between individuals”.  

Similarly, UNESCO defines the intercultural education as: “the existence and equitable interaction of diverse cultures and the possibility of generating shared cultural expressions through dialogue and mutual respect”. 

Being characterized by problems of literacy, early school leaving, language barriers and lack of intercultural dialogue, those communities need the engagement of the international community to address among others, priorities such as the promotion of their inclusion and the upholding of their fundamental rights as European citizens.

In terms of target groups we can distinguish on paper between primary and secondary target groups, while in reality they are all connected together:

Primary target groups:

Children in preschool and primary education belonging to minorities groups (including Romas but not limited to these) and children with a migrant background who are vulnerable to social exclusion, marginalization and discrimination. In details:

• Migrants
• First- or second-generation immigrants
• Foreign nationals
• Ethnic minorities
• Newly-arrived migrants
• Refugees
• Asylum seekers

Secondary target groups:

• Teachers
• Teachers' Trainers
• Public and Private Educational authorities
• Representatives of Cultural Centres and Civil Society organisations working with minorities groups
• Parents’ Associations
• Representatives of Local, National Authorities
• Representatives of EU Institutions
• Public opinion makers / local and national press