A digital learning tool in migration history

You And Me (YAM) was originally part of the Capital of Culture year Stavanger2008 and was developed in collaboration between the Norwegian Emigrant Center, the University of Stavanger and Sandnes upper secondary school. YAM was among the first projects to be approved when Stavanger applied for status as Capital of Culture. YAM2008 consisted of three main parts: a digital learning tool in migration history (You And Me) , an international camp school (World Village) and a traveling exhibition (People in Transit). Today, the You And Me learning tool is constantly evolving, with partners in many countries in Europe and the United States.

You And Me is based on the idea that knowledge of our own emigrant history will make it easier to understand today’s immigration. The program’s goal is to increase the understanding of migration as a phenomenon, see the human destinies behind the phenomenon, contribute to increased awareness of one’s own attitudes towards “the others” and consolidate the individual’s role as a responsible actor in a multicultural society.

Most of us do not have to search very long to find traces of migrants in our own family. In today’s school, many students have often migrated themselves – from one continent to another, from country to country, city to city or from the countryside to more urban areas – the same can apply to parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and further relatives backwards.

You And Me teaches young people more about themselves and their own family background and connects family relocations with larger migration patterns. This makes it easier to identify with other people on the move. You And Me seeks to convey that migration concerns us all, as a timeless phenomenon that has been going on throughout human history, and that xenophobia and racism are not modern inventions, but attitudes that have always been necessary to address in order to combat.

You And Me is available for free on the internet . Teacher’s guide can be downloaded from our document archive in the menu on the left.