There is a lack of public knowledge and understanding of specific migrant groups, their needs and rights (general social, and specific educational). There is also a lack of understanding of key discrimination problems that migrants are facing, and a lack of specific training of key public officials to deal with specific groups of migrants in order to ensure proper access to their rights and prevent discriminatory practices.

Short description of target population:

• The parents of immigrant (alien or repatriate) children in the participating schools, and through them the whole immigrant community.
• The parents of native children in the participating schools, and through them the whole local community.
• The classroom teachers of the respective schools, with large immigrant population.
• The Local Authorities.
• NGOs that deal with issues of migration and/or intercultural education

A number of interventions were designed:

1. Teacher training seminars on gaining intercultural communication skills.
2. Mobile “counseling units”, which visited the immigrant families, and regular teachers-parents meetings.
3. Introduction of: a) the “intercultural mediator”, i.e.an immigrant fluent in Greek, who would strengthen the school-family relationship; b) the “foster parent”, a native Greek who would “adopt” a parent from a certain immigrant family and help improve his/her contact with the local school.
4. Encouragement of immigrant parents to help their children with homework.
5. Encouragement of immigrant parents to participate in school activities and to bring to school cultural material from their country of origin.
6. Cooperation between immigrant families, schools and the Local Authorities.

1. A significant number of (primary & secondary) school teachers have been trained to become more effective in dealing with “multicultural” classes, and in establishing stronger ties between the immigrant families and the hosting communities.
2. More that 1,000 immigrant parents took part in some or most of the activities designed for this project. 
3. Numerous immigrant parents have significantly improved their language skills, and participated more actively in the various school activities.
4. 4. A data-base of the so-called “intercultural mediators” was constructed.
5. The “Xenia” network was established, for the cultivation of dialogue between teachers who participated --or wish to participate— in intercultural activities (254 teachers registered in the period 2012-2013). E-discussions web-adress: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/network-xenia

The teachers, as well as the immigrant families who participated in the project, have expressed very positive comments about its implementation. Especially the teachers saw the project as something that raised their awareness for a number of every-day problems of the classroom, and simultaneously provided intercultural learning material for future use. Both teachers and families expressed the wish that the projects had more time for implementation and a better institutional support, either by the Ministry of Education or by the Local Authorities.

The type of evaluation performed or to be performed & evaluation indicators: The evaluation was made by the scientific committee of the Programme, and it was based on the:

• reports submitted by each regional support team’s head,
• informal discussions between the coordinating teams, and
• questionnaires filled in by teachers in each participant school.

Available resources: Resources of the school units were used. Training seminars took place, either in the participating schools or universities’ premises, or in various conference venues around the country.

Success:

1. Immigrant student have significantly improved their school performance.
2. Immigrant parents participated more actively in the various school activities.
3. Teachers gained invaluable experience on dealing with multicultural learning environments, and they were given access to rich learning material.

Failures/side effects:

1. The mobile counselling units did not work out as planned (very limited success).
2. The “foster parent” initiative did not work out as planned, with most of native parents being very cautious in “adopting” parents from immigrant families.
3. The “intercultural mediator” initiative worked out well, but still it took a lot of time for the creation of the data-base.
4. Time pressure and bureaucratic barriers discouraged many teachers and (immigrant) parents from participating, and significantly delayed the launch of pioneering initiatives such as that of the “intercultural mediator” (see above).

Recommendations: do’s and don’ts:

1. Amelioration of the organizational structure of Greek Education, by combating unnecessary bureaucracy and giving more freedom to the individual school unit.
2. Institutionalization of “intercultural practices” and creation of permanent structures and procedures for enhancing and enriching the school-family ties.
3. Better administrative and financial support for similar projects in the future (at national and local level).
4. Arrangement of more frequent parent-teacher meetings.
5. More frequent and creative use of the ICTs, either for the production of learning material related to “intercultural education”, or for the dissemination of good practices, at local, regional, national and international level.

Funding was provided by the European Union Operational Programme "Education and Lifelong Learning"; national Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), 2007-2013, mainly for operational costs (e.g. transportation costs); two part-time persons were employed as administrative personnel.