We started from the observation that in each partner country of the project , a majority of students that we see daily in our courses have become impervious to the plight of people around them in society. Even if this attitude is unvoluntary, indifference and individualism gradually wins the heart of men. It often needs a litle help to make the different actors communicate so that a dialogue is established again. So we thought to involve a group of pilot students enrolled in various categories of students on a voluntary basis, to try to implement actions that would aim to help the associations, whose volunteers are already trying to create and implement mechanisms to help the poorest. In all of our countries , we will have a group of participants (between 20 and 25 students), all volunteers, who will act for the chosen associations. The proposed activities are very diverse, but always with a common goal: punctually raise funds that would abound reservations associations to enable them to finance new projects, in order to further help people in distress. These actions mentioned in more detail in the Gantt chart. The different actions would involve our students, the key players in the project. They would search for solutions together with the members of the associations and their beneficiaries through meetings and dialogues. Some examples for solutions and concrete actions would be to interact, disseminate information to raise awareness, raise funds through sales of objects, call for donations etc. The benefits of these actions throughout the project life are manifold. We would like to see our students grow as humans, to instill in our students a taste of entrepreneurship for non-commercial purposes, make them interested in the people around them and to become sensitive to issues concerning the associations. Finally we would like to see a permanent link forming between the world of associations and European citizens: a human approach, devoid of ulterior motives.
We have been teaching for many years in a secondary school in a Priority Education Zone and we had noticed that many students were working in an individualistic way, regardless of those around them, especially the most disadvantaged people. We talked with our colleagues, our management and a number of parents who shared our point of view. The idea of our future project started then. We wanted to set up a project for the European section of our school, because we knew that if a European project would begin, English would be the essential language of communication. We also wanted to find a local associative partner in our country in order to make pupils aware of their surroundings and to make them interact with people in distress, to see how they would behave and hoping that they would become better citizens, more sensitive to the misfortunes of others and far less egocentric. This project, initially carried out by France (as we wished to be the coordinating country), could be extended to potential partners who would be added to the original project, since we thought that we all had the same problems, including countries (Scandinavian countries for example. Once the association was chosen by our students, GALI (a group of several local micro-associations with a social vocation and the reintegration of people lacking benchmarks and suffering from a disorganized social life), a partnership lasting almost two years was created, enabling our students, aged between 14 and 16, to interact with volunteers and beneficiaries, listening to their difficulties and problems of life. Little by little, concrete actions were put in place, punctually and then more regularly, according to the associative life of the association and its highlights. Charity sales organized by our students for the benefit of the association were born, volunteer contributions to food collections, lottos and other celebrations multiplied. The exchanges with our European partners made it possible, as time went on, to discover new national or local associative actors and also to see what actions were being implemented on both sides of the borders. The students fed on each other's ideas and approaches, and adults, parents and teachers alike. Because of the level of class chosen, a first promotion of students who participated in the project and became high school students, we were able to continue exchanging with them and really know what the lessons they had learned from the experience. They all agreed that they had the feeling of growing and evolving positively, developing a spirit of altruism and of European citizenship, committed to continuing the work of associations initiated and to pursuing Europe and across European borders. We have been sensitive to all the marks of gratitude, wherever they come from and whatever country it took place in. From our point of view of teachers, we had the feeling of being useful in the realization of this project, both for our students and for the beneficiaries with whom we were in contact. We aspired to set up a project that was not academic but whose approach would be essentially a citizen, with not necessarily concrete or tangible skills and competences, we were more in the creation of a concept, an idea and we think we have reached our target. Much communication around the project has brought some reflection on our local community, teachers, parents and pupils closely associated with the success of the events throughout these two years together with a single common dynamic: improvement of the living conditions of the beneficiaries of our respective associations.