Social Inclusion: From Cultural Barriers to Shared Spaces. The SPARK Project Engages First-Year Students at Mariupol State University

On 29 October, Mariupol State University lecturers Lenina Zadorozhna-Kniahnytska and Iryna Khadzhynova, participants in the international SPARK project, delivered an inspiring interactive training session for first-year students. The session focused on social inclusion and overcoming cultural and social barriers within communities.

The training aimed to develop students’ ability to recognise social barriers, stereotypes and mechanisms of exclusion, while helping them design people-centred solutions for creating welcoming shared spaces.

A distinctive and effective teaching approach was the use of Anatole’s Little Saucepan, a French animated short directed by Éric Montchaud and based on the book by Isabelle Carrier. The film served as a case study throughout the session, allowing students to explore, step by step, how individual differences and the reactions of others can lead to isolation—or to acceptance and the creation of an inclusive environment.

Working individually, in pairs and in small groups, the students discussed several key questions:

• What actually creates a barrier: a person’s individual characteristics or the way society responds to them?

• How do formal participation and integration differ from meaningful social inclusion?

• How can diversity become a shared resource?

Students were particularly engaged by the practical case studies. Taking on different social roles—such as a local community member, an internally displaced person or a social worker—participants practised listening to others’ needs, considering diverse experiences and developing shared solutions.

The session concluded with a shared insight:

Social inclusion begins not with asking a person to ‘be like everyone else’, but with creating conditions in which differences do not stand in the way of dignity, participation and a sense of belonging,” said Lenina Zadorozhna-Kniahnytska.