From 15 March to 8 April, the project (Re-)Bordering Europe?: Views and Voices of Citizens and Non-Citizens; a digital story-telling project took place under the direction of Eithne Knappitsch, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences and thus a TEIN member, as well as Svetlana Buko and SIETAR Austria as part of the TEIN4Citizens project, bringing together 54 students from over 10 different countries in Europe and beyond. 

 The students came from four different universities: the University of Applied Sciences Carinthia (Austria), the University of Strasbourg (France), the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the Technical University of Liberec (Czech Republic). 

The aim of the project was to enable students in intercultural teams to learn, follow and reflect on the transformation of EU borders while creating digital stories about the 5 different borders.

Versatile technical platforms and tools such as Zoom and Miro were used. For the students, this project therefore not only added value in terms of factual knowledge about EU borders or intercultural teamwork at a distance, but also many new digital skills, such as making online videos. 

The newly acquired expertise in turn led to a better understanding of EU borders in in pre-pandemic times, but also and especially in times of the current crisis, when borders and their closure increasingly entered the consciousness of people beyond the border regions. 

Among other things, it became clear to the participants that 

• Different areas in cross-border regions are very dependent on each other, especially in terms of economy and work 
• A control of the border regions exclusively by the government form the central part of the country may be harmful for the local inhabitants. 
• The Corona pandemic hit the border regions and people who regularly cross the border the hardest. 

Challenges and opportunities of working together in intercultural teams were recorded in a survey among the participants at the end of the project. A large majority expressed very positive opinions about the newly acquired intercultural skills and knowledge of digital learning methods, as well as the understanding of European border regions. 

To get more insight on this project, you can watch a short video summing up the project’s content following this link.