Through this project, we wanted to position ourselves as a resource organization for the young people we work with on issues relating to civic commitment. Our starting point was the assumption, based on our experience as a support organization for young volunteers, that young people are often impressed by the responsibilities involved, which can be a barrier to commitment. We also recognized that commitment is a personal process, but that it requires access to certain elements. This is why we developed the YOPACA project, over 2 years, to offer a “Commitment Pathway”, which would help to remove these obstacles for the young people we work with. We wanted to encourage cooperation between young people, to enable them to emulate each other, and to co-construct a pathway that suited them and in which they could find fulfillment. We began by setting up a small “motor group” of volunteers (former volunteers or interns from our association wishing to go further on the issues of commitment and civic participation), to facilitate their participation but also to encourage other young people who could identify with them as peers. For this project, Solidarités Jeunesses has positioned itself as a supporting and facilitating structure, offering the means and resources to enable individual and collective reflection on civic action and the power of young people to act. We felt it essential to distinguish the young people we welcome and support from the other diverse publics we wanted to reach through the project, who may have varied profiles and backgrounds, making the notion of commitment multiple and specific to each individual. The beneficiaries were also young people with fewer opportunities, for whom the notion of commitment can be experienced differently or in a more complex way, and whom we valued highly, because we knew that this was the first step in gaining mutual trust, which would then enable us to propose adapted activities in which they could recognize themselves and in which they could participate and in which they would want to become more involved. For the young people to set up their own projects, we felt it was essential to be attentive to their needs, and therefore to be clearly identified as a facilitating resource, while allowing them to act as autonomously as possible, in a gradual way. In a positive logic, for this type of young person, we wanted to make the most of their presence and time invested, by enabling them to become ambassadors and witnesses for other young people, as they would be the ones best representing their experience to their peers. Our workshops are designed to equip and prepare them for these different roles, according to their projects and motivations, with a view to enabling them to emancipate themselves and reinvest what they have learned in their daily lives as citizens. Another group we work with are young people who have already had one or more experiences of volunteering and/or community involvement, and who have thus had the opportunity to reflect on their personal notions of commitment and what it means to them. Our projects generally involve not only members of the Solidarités Jeunesses movement (volunteers, salaried staff, elected representatives), but also support and partnerships with local institutions, enabling us to anchor our actions and provide a learning dimension for and by young people. The main objectives we wanted participants to achieve (for all the groups identified as “targets” in this project, not just the “motor group”) were: - Being and knowing how to be recognized - Learn to debate - Encourage exchanges within the group, learn to manage the flow of words and active listening - Respecting everyone's opinion and encouraging participation without value judgments - Transmit to participants individual and collective techniques based on non-violent communication to facilitate exchanges and equip them in their relationship with themselves and others - Be on an equal footing with the project's stakeholders, and encourage interaction and exchange between the “general public” participants, the “driving group” and the institutions involved in the various actions.