Youth and local democracy
SYNTHESIS
Place of reception: Nort-sur-Erdre,
House of Employment and Training Date: May 11, 2021
Context and stake
André Durand, Head of Department, House of Employment and Training, Nort-sur-Erdre
Nort-sur-Erdre is not a town with a main sector of activity as in Saint-Nazaire.
Learning Territories will make it possible to monitor the development of the Planning for Employment and Skills (GPEC).
The objective is to create favorable conditions for the development of the territory around skills.
Xavier Lemonde, Webinar host, Director of the European University of Scents and Flavors
The question on demography and youth is topical since a report from the National Institute of Youth and Popular Education (INJEP) says that there is a distrust of young people in politics, in non-government democratic… We will therefore seek to take an interest in actions in the field and prevent the risks facing democracy through training and learning.
Speech by Alexandre Ginoyer and Patrick Waeles, President and Vice-President of the World Committee for Lifelong Learning
Alexandre Ginoyer: The World Committee for Lifelong Learning has been a partner of UNESCO since 2005. Our specificity is to focus on the learning that all people should acquire throughout life in a learning continuum . There are formal and informal learning beyond school. The question is :
- What can the environment offer for learning for everyone?
- How can she be educated on the territory?
We have long been interested in learning territories because we have been asked about the role of digital technology. We realized that it is in a place where people meet physically that things are happening that cannot be on the internet. Our role is to bring about anything that can help and facilitate what humans will be able to learn throughout life.
Xavier Lemonde: Is this a support program action at the global level? Do you have any examples of construction sites?
AG: We strive to be global, we work with China, with Europe. We have a digital program, an experience in several countries to give inclusion to young people who do not have jobs.
We are also organizing a global forum that allows everyone to discuss. We can see from our rounds that the more variety the more interesting it is. You need several actors with the same objective.
XL: Can you enlighten us on the notions of insertion, integration, inclusion?
Patrick Waeles: Integration is finding a place, integration is finding a place in the dominant world, inclusion is taking each other a step towards the other, it is a system of meeting, we have to find a common interest, to co-construct. In the idea of inclusion, we think that everyone has a part in a solution. We have to do something in common in our diversity in order to move forward.
XL: How is the territory the right scale of inclusions?
PW: Young people's environments are dictated by training systems that lead people to gain skills. In the learning logic, we will change the environment so that learning happens differently. We leave the field of action where the person is the center.
Learning Territories aims to change data to become the engine of collective learning. We must find a solution together through dialogue where we will learn new ways of thinking. Even if we don't agree at the start, because that's what will move us forward collectively. This is why the territory is the ideal scale.
AG: It's important to have a story in a territory, but that's not enough to make a development project. The means are good, but they are not enough to make the development. What makes learning territories is a project.
The territories must of course have ambitions, but everyone must act together, there must be innovation in a learning territory, which is what allows serendipity.
Speech by Philippe Dugravot, President of the North Atlantic Local Mission
Philippe Dugravot: There is a need for access to employment and training, which have become local missions. This local mission covers 49 municipalities, 4 inter-municipal authorities: Châteaubriant / Derval, Nozay, Blain, Erdre and Gesvres and Ancenis.
It should be remembered that there are 30% of young people under 20 in Erdre, and it is a department that is increasing in terms of population. The role of the local mission, which is an associative structure, is to find its place in the public employment service. We are in contact with associative, local partners.
In 2020, the “one young person, one solution” system will be set up. It is a plan which aims to leave no young people by the wayside, and to include young people who are in difficult situations and far from employment. The local mission aims to identify these young people, welcome them, guide them towards training actions, towards employment, support in building a professional career, and support recruitment.
Today the health situation is an important and obligatory element to be taken into account. Some audiences were in a difficult situation, and are even more so since the current health crisis due to lack of access to digital tools, for example. They have moved away from the help we could provide. We have to go upstream to get this audience back.
XL: Are there any specifics about your local action?
PD: We have contrasting territories with different challenges between the entrance to Nantes and the north of the Loire-Atlantique. In Nantes there are more digital trades while in the north it is more rural, industrial and building trades. We are setting up the Youth Guarantee System which aims to support them. The essence of our action is a work of partnership which allows us to organize training actions. This system provides assistance to train them, support them and guide them towards the professional project. We are also setting up a support path to lead to training actions and actions towards employment.
XL: Is the entrepreneurial sector active? How to link partners?
PD: We are lucky to be in a territory where we know our interlocutors. Companies are responding to these initiatives. Pôle Emploi and the Local Mission feel that the future of companies cannot be dissociated from the challenges linked to young people. We have to train these young generations. Last year we had about sixty companies that got involved in bringing young people to work contracts. We have active and dynamic approaches on a daily basis through lunches and individual meetings. It is in this way and by identifying young people that we are able to establish this relationship with local and professional circles.
XL: How do you see the demand from young people evolving?
PD: We have two categories of audience. One in a process of training and professionalization which will go in the direction that we are pursuing in our missions. Then we have people without initial training who do not necessarily have plans. We have a proportion of young people who turn away from employment because they have the impression that the job is not for them. We have awareness work to do on a daily basis to concern them.
We have needs in all areas of craftsmanship, digital technology, and agriculture. For all these profiles, awareness is to be done with different categories of public.
XL: What is the link between local missions and training organizations?
PD: The scale of the territory is the relevant scale. In our department we have the Local Committee, Employment, Training, and Professional Orientations (CLEFOP), which is chaired by the prefects, and which bring together all the partners concerned by professional issues. Thanks to this CLEFOP, we will be able to carry out actions in our territories.
Speech by Robert Jouan and François-Xavier Lamotte, Co-Chairmen of the Development Council of Erdre and Gesvres
Robert Jouan: The Erdre et Gesvres Development Council has associative status. In 2013, change of course at the Board of Directors of Erdre et Gesvres. We went looking for women to integrate them. Now it's the young people, because you can't see them anywhere.
Our associative project was designed around 4 values: citizenship / freedom of expression and openness / listening and sharing / respect and courtesy.
In 2019, we set ourselves a course: Co-construct a future that is desirable, united, and sustainable, by facilitating transitions, whether they are societal, economic, ecological, energy, and with all the actors of 'Erdre and Gesvres. And this is taking shape especially among young people.
François-Xavier Lamotte: Young people are not inclined to answer social questions, we went to schools and it did not work too well. Then within the agricultural school of Nort-sur-Erdre a sharing of common values developed, and we decided to take action on the transitions that they will have to live, so that it is productive. We set up reflection groups with young people from the school, in order to add their voices. There is a positive feedback to elected officials and they are even asking today.
XL: Can you illustrate an element subject to the gaze of young people?
F.-XL: For example, we dealt with the digital issue, what will change in the professions of tomorrow. Contrary to popular belief, they have difficulty projecting themselves into the jobs of tomorrow in connection with digital technology. We took these young people to the CNAM in Nantes in a space developed to project themselves into the future, and the work was to put them in a context where we are in 2100, there is no more room on Earth and we have to go and create habitat on the Moon. We asked the young people to list the jobs they would need on the Moon… We went together to an organic farm to show the life of an organic farm, then we put them in a city council situation, each with a role, and the objective was to open a farmers market in the territory. The idea was to have them discuss the issues together. This leads young people to position themselves in the face of problems like adults.
And systematically, at each meeting, we give them an order to make them responsible and we ask them to produce ideas, and it is necessary to bring their voice to elected officials.
XL: Are you interested in making the territory a learning territory?
F.-XL: To make the link between territories and learners and youth, we cannot do without their reflection. They taught us about ourselves. When we are with them, we put ourselves in the position of facilitator. They are fully aware of what is happening on the climate, our missions allow them to express themselves on these questions. We also target parents by sharing their children's experience and concerns.
In conclusion
Brigitte Gehin, Project Manager, Development Pole, National Union of Rural Family Homes
The aim is above all to live together. The territory must be seen as an environment, a place of life and a space for action. Each person must feel that they belong to it to encourage the meeting. We must think about how to promote the territory, the responsibility of these young people in these spaces, and the place that is left to them.
René Caspar, Consultant on Learning Territories
You have to change your posture, move from knowing to facilitator. You have to put yourself in a position to receive a potential citizen from your territory. He knows the precise situation of his territory, because he lived there… We are going to be interested in what he observed and what he lived. The institutions must cover the needs of local businesses. Most of the young people who drop out do not stay in the trades that are offered.
In Canada, institutions were based on the desire of young people to match the jobs to be filled through training, which seems to be a heresy in France. We must therefore not put these people in a mold, we must bring out what people have in them to create lasting jobs and not just employees. People also need to be taught to learn which will make it easier for them to learn skills.
The real question is knowing how to support and accompany everything that moves in a territory.