In the Lyon area, the C.L.A.S.S.E.S associationwith the support of Action Education, is running podcast creation workshops for 16 young people with learning difficulties. Co-financed by the European Union, the workshops took place from mid-April. The aim of the workshops is to help young people find ways to build a future for themselves.
Their names are Suela, Ruth, Natalia, Léonardo, Maka, Mohamed, Indonésia, Tabitah, André, Cosmin, Rusalim, Leandro, Stef, Natalia, Narcissa and Amza. They are aged between 12 and 18. These young people are in contact with the Lyon-based association C.L.A.S.S.E.S (Collectif Lyonnais pour l'Accès à la Scolarisation et le Soutien aux Enfants des Squats). They have often moved from one place to another as their families have been evicted. Having only recently arrived in France, most of them have had little schooling and have a poor command of French. They sometimes wait many months for the French education system to offer them a place in a collège or lycée.
Young people who sometimes say to themselves "It's not worth continuing", "I'll wait until I'm 16 and then I'll work...", "What am I going to do?", "How can I do this? They don't always see the point of continuing their education. For parents, it is sometimes difficult to help their children with these questions. Despite all this, the desire of young people and their parents for a better future persists.
A team is being set up, accompanied by Hugo Lheureux, a podcast creator, to run these workshops: helping young people to formulate their questions, prepare and conduct interviews, first with each other, then with professionals.
Precarious living conditions
Many families, victims of political, social and economic discrimination, have fled their countries of origin and are living in precarious conditions in Greater Lyon. These families suffer repeated expulsions and their children sometimes have great difficulty in effectively benefiting from the right to education.
Since 2019, Action Education has been supporting and accompanying C.L.A.S.S.E.S., which facilitates access to schooling for children living in shanty towns, squats or temporary accommodation. The association's staff and volunteers help families with administrative formalities and facilitate links between the school, parents and children. C.L.A.S.S.E.S also informs teachers, school parents, social workers and town hall administrative staff about the living conditions of the families.
The association also enables professionals to discuss their practices with these children. C.L.A.S.S.E.S. works in a network on the ground with other associations working in the fields of schools, health, housing and employment. C.L.A.S.S.E.S. is involved both locally and nationally in the fight for these people's rights.
Explore your future through podcasting and drawing
The team, working with Hugo Lheureux, helped the young people to express their desires for the future. How should they present themselves succinctly? What should they say about their plans? How should they express themselves?
Interview with Amza
"My name is Amza, I'm 14 and I'm in Year 5.ème. I have a brother and a sister. I'm passionate about architecture and mini-craft. My favourite food is tacos. I live in Châtillon d'Azergues and go to collège Simone Weil. Things are going really well and I've got some great friends. I'm a boy who doesn't like to give up on his goals. My goals for this year are to be a bit more muscular, raise my grades a bit and improve my average a bit.
The team, together with the podcast creator, also prepared the young people to conduct interviews with professionals, to help them discover different careers.
Interview with a care assistant working with the elderly by Natalia
"- Hello.
- Hello, my name is Natalia, I'm 14. Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you. I'm Habiba.
- So I wanted to know if the work was hard.
- Yes, it's not easy. On the other hand, it really is a very human job. You receive a lot. You give a lot, but physically it's hard. It's very difficult. Psychologically, too, because we see a lot of people who are affected morally and psychologically. Illness makes them very vulnerable, but it's a very demanding job. I've been doing it for 33 years. I'm a recent graduate. I've only been qualified for 6 months, but frankly it's a human job, so if you like contact with people, you like talking to people, you like talking to people, you like talking to people, this is the job for you.
Fred, an illustrator, sketched them during their workshops between words and drawings and guided them in the definition of characters seeking their place at school. By drawing, we can also talk... about guidance.
Uniforms and costumesa text written by young people in search of characters.
In Chechnya, everyone has a uniform at school. Boys wear trousers and a suit jacket, a shirt and a tie. Girls wear long skirts. Here in France it's strange, we all dress differently at school, sometimes like at the beach.
It would be funny to imagine a schoolboy dressed like a French student in the middle of a Chechen class. Or someone in a Chechen kimono or uniform in the middle of a French class, or someone dressed like a schoolboy on a judo mat!
Participate in Mag Junior 2024 on the theme of Let's live in the world!
Producing podcasts Let's talk about the future together!The young people supported by C.L.A.S.S.E.S. took part in Mag Junior 2024, as did a number of other young people. young people accompanied by our partner Stea in Romania or by Médecins du Monde in Bulgaria.
These teenagers from France, Romania and Bulgaria, accompanied by artists and professionals, asked themselves questions about their relationship with their environment, their place in the world, their future - in short, about the way in which they would like to live their lives. living in the world !
More information in the Mag Junior Let's live in the world! to be published in January 2024.
