Back to search

Never say "I can't"

2020-2-FR02-KA105-0176562020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: FR|BE · Grant: €31,184
Inclusion - equityAccess for disadvantagedLabour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Objectives

We have set up a youth exchange with Belgium and Reunion Island, an outermost French region. This youth exchange was entitled "Never say, I can't". Why this title? This title is to tell young people in difficulty not to give up in the face of their precarious situation and the other difficulties they encounter. That they are capable of doing things. That they must believe in their abilities. and above all that they have potential. It should be noted that in Reunion Too many young people struggle to acquire their autonomy. Indeed, once out of the school system, only a quarter of Reunion Islanders under the age of 30 have both their own home and a job, thus taking full autonomy. They are half as numerous as young people in metropolitan France. Young people without a diploma have a lot of difficulties. They stop their studies around the age of 17 and only one in ten becomes self-sufficient afterwards. For young people, having a job is a strong condition for access to housing, but it is not enough. The stability of employment and its level of qualification also have an influence. The most affected are the youngest and least educated. Six out of ten young people under the age of 25 are in a precarious situation. With few experience and/or few graduates, these young people have difficulty integrating into the labour market. Through this project, we have helped participants to get rid of these representations and to perceive Europe in a different way in the construction of their career, to train or acquire a first professional experience and open up to new cultural experiences. We have set ourselves the goal of getting young people to change their mentality in the face of the system of secure public and family support that does not sufficiently develop their ability to be autonomous. Thus, they have learned to access resources and to appropriate the means offered to be able to build their own journey by themselves. At the same time, we have developed a more positive self-image and confidence through active educational methods during this project. We have made the young actors of their exchange. The goal was not to offer them a program perfectly tied up with fixed activities, but to develop their spirit of initiative, given their expectations and fears. They are the ones who decided from A to Z the activities to be set up, the organization of the stay. This way of doing things made it possible to empower them and to take into account their expectations and suggestions as well as the opportunity to concretely implement, through practice, acquired skills such as: - learning or perfecting the French language; - the development and monitoring of a budget, meal menus, an itinerary, a program of visits to Reunion Island, meetings related to the theme ... - learning teamwork, respecting a timetable and deadlines, developing a communication strategy, when a project is carried out by young people themselves, whether at local, national or European level. They became aware of their potential and skills. During this exchange we brought another way of learning to our young people. Our project has responded to the objectives of the Erasmus+ programme mainly in the valorization and recognition of the non-formal education of young people in integration and active participation but also in access to mobility for young people.

Project partners (2)