In Memoriam: Vivien Gyuris 

1975-2025

This is a celebration and commemoration of our team member Vivien who is no longer with us. 

Vivien was the driving force behind this project. Without her, there would be no Inclusion Stories. Sadly, we lost her to a serious illness just before we started to collect our stories. Vivien had extensive experience in working internationally on inclusion matters. She had worked with the World Bank, the European Council on Roma inclusion, UNICEF on digital inclusion and countless other projects where her sharp intellect was an asset to the development of inclusion in different areas. She was studying to attain a PhD in  inclusive education with a special interest in inclusion in our era of migration. 

We worked together in an Erasmus project (The Emergence of the IFIP Europe) and quickly found common ground both personally and professionally. The idea for Inclusion Stories from the Classroom came about when we were discussing what it takes to make real change happen. Teacher training often starts with a concept or methods that are taught to teachers. There is nothing wrong with that, but we could both see stable outcomes when we start with what teachers already do as a springboard for reflection and change. What if we could gather inclusion stories, stories of how teachers and schools have worked to make change happen, and reflect on them from more perspectives? We knew from both studies and experience that there are ways we can learn from those challenging situations when everything looks like a new problem but is in fact a variation on a theme. 

We also discussed how we keep hearing anecdotes and stories of real inclusion experiences both from practitioners and students and parents. What if we could harness those stories and try out a way to use them for learning both in the school and in other schools? What if we could use the stories, not one by one, but as a collection of stories that together tell a bigger story about inclusion, specifically inclusion in Europe? 

 Vivien drafted a project plan and we were excited to work on it, adjust it, find suitable methods and refine it to apply for funding. 

 The consortium was a comfort, a tight knit group of inclusionists who all knew Vivien and wanted to carry on her vision. We set to work with energy and resolve. This is a project we all believe in, we could all see the potential from the start even if things weren’t completely clear from the get go. 

 It is sad to not be able to share the work that is being done in this project with Vivien.  However, there is comfort in knowing that she would have loved the reflections that are taking place, the stories that are being shaped and the deepening insights. 

 This is for you, Vivi, it would not have come to life without you.