December 10th, when we celebrate the Human Rights Day, over 80 teachers and students of pedagogical faculties from the whole Poland met on the “School without discrimination – safe school” conference in Warsaw.

The meeting was inaugurated by Ewa Kulik-Bielińska – director of the Stefan Batory Foundation, Marlena Fałkowska from Center for Education Development and Małgorzata Dymowska from the Anti-discrimination Education Association. Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, the Minister of Education could not attend but her letter has been read.

During the plenary session the speakers covered some major challenges that the modern schools and educational system are facing in the context of counteracting discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, immigration status ect. Prof. Małgorzata Fuszara, Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment, highlighted the role of the Batory Foundation and the Norwegian funds in the activities of anti-discrimination education , that have been recently undertaken in more professional and organized manner mainly by the representatives of the NGO sector. It’s worth to mention that due to the financial support of the Citizens for Democracy programme, many NGOs working in the area of combating discrimination can currently implement interesting and necessary projects.

In the second part of the conference, couple of our Project Promoters (Anti-discrimination Education Association, Foundation for Social Diversity, Point of View Foundation, Feminoteka Foundation, Karta Center Foundation, Autonomy Foundation, Center For Citizenship Education) shared their experiences and tools of counteracting discrimination and anti-discrimination education, that can be useful for the teachers in their day-to-day work.

The conference was organized within the cooperation of the Stefan Batory Foundation, Center for Education Development and  Anti-discrimination Education Association within the Citizens for Democracy programme.