The Intercultural Exchange « RurAlternative II »

In october, the team Hors Pistes hosted for two weeks 24 young people from 4 european countries for the intercultural exchange « RurAlternative II ». The two pillars of the project were: the discovery  of the rural life and the practice of the intercomprehension in latin languages (French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian). We spent our first 6 days at our partner « Ecoloc », in Barret sur Méouge (Hautes Alpes), in a bucolic setting. 

Coordination of volunteering

In 2018, Hors Pistes made it possible for 45 young people go abroad and also welcomed 44 young people in four different places of the region (a total of 89 people). These young volunteers, participants in The European Solidarity Corps (formerly European Voluntary Service) or in the Civic Service program, supported their welcoming teams in the existing projects while also developing new activities. Their missions were diverse , reaching an equally diverse public.

In 2018, Hors Pistes coordinated 8 regional projects and 3 international projects through the Erasmus+ “Service Volontaire Européen” programme. The team also introduced 3 projects in 2018 for the 2019 regional and international volunteers. The three files were submitted as part of the new programme called European Solidarity Corps, meant to replace the ESV.

Welcoming the volunteers in schools

The Hors Pistes Association was selected by the Erasmus+ programme to launch a new dynamic by welcoming the young international volunteers in the schools of the South Region – PACA. The project was initiated in 2017 in collaboration with the Aix-Marseille Academy, the Nice Academy and the Regional Directorate for Youth and Sport and ended in august 2020. A total of 13 educational institutions got involved in the project and 30 young volunteers were on this mission in 2018.

In 2018, Hors Pistes organized 3 seminars for the international volunteers hosted in Marseille and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur southern region. A mid-term seminar for the volunteers welcomed in January and April 2018 (the 9th and 10th of April 2018) and in September. The seminar allowed the reunion of 20 international volunteers. That meeting represented each volunteer’s opportunity to return to their initial learning objectives and the occasion to give them the right tools and directions for the upcoming end of the volunteering (return to emplyment, continuation of training etc.) while valorifying the skills (personal and professional) acquiered and/or developed during their volunteering experience in France. This reunion also makes it possible to develop the volunteering network and organize different projects between more associations or with different educational institutions.

In 2018, we coordinated 11 volunteering projects through the Civic Service for 8 to 12 months missions, including 2 international missions and 9 missions in Marseille.

EUROMOBILITIES ERASMUS +

EUROMOBILITIES ERASMUS+, A LEVER FOR EMPLOYMENT is a project created within the Fomation Erasmus+ programme. It is founded by the Pôle Emploi PACA and developed by associations Hors Pistes (as a training organization) and Parcours le Monde Sud-Est (as a service provider organization). This programme is for the people from the region that are looking for jobs, regardless of their age or level of training. We support professional internship opportunites in Europe for periods of 3 or 6 months.

In 2018, Hors Pistes and Parcours le Monde Sud-Est sent 69 interns to the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Malta and Portugal. Hors Pistes accompanied 25 of those job seekers.

We support the organizations that wish to welcome and host international volunteers to carry out missions of general interest. As a coordinating organisation approved by the Erasmus+ Youth and Sport, our role is to inform, prepare and train these organisms to join the programme. Then, we carry the necessary grant applications and support each structure during all the stages. In 2018, we coordinated the welcoming of 30 volunteers from 18 oranizations.

The strategic partnership “The Good, the youth and the volunteer”

In March 2018, Hors Pistes launched a project consisting in a « strategic partnership » at an European level, with partner structures in Europe. All of them are active in the area of volunteering and coordinate sending and hosting missions, just like us. The project’s objective is, through numerous “Job Shadowing” meetings, to exchange our good practices in terms of welcoming the international volunteers (especially the young people with fewer possibilities), to take a step back and put in perspective our practices when encountering different ways of doing partnerships.

Help with setting-up the project

In 2018, the Social Center Fissiaux at Cinq Avenues contacted Hors Pistes with the hope of widening their horizons internationally regarding their activities. The center’s animators work daily with groups of young people between the ages of 14 and 17 and tackle subjects as citizenship, social cohesion and living together. Hors Pistes supported, thereby, the Fissiaux Center in the development of the project, in building the partnership and creating the Erasmus + file.

« Unblocking English » workshops

Hors Pistes, in collaboration with Parcours le monde, offered in 2018 a series of 8 free workshops open to all, meant to « unlock » the preexisting skills in English language. The initiative was well received and, therefore, more worksops were scheduled for 2019.

Workshops in schools

As part of the INES program, Hors Pistes intervened in the St-Louis high school regarding an environmental project. The main objectives were to understand the impact our actions have on the environment, to discover strategies meant to reduce our ecological footprint and to develop an active participation of the youth in the society.

The language week in schools

Within the « Words from outside the classroom” contest, we organized linguistic activities at the Paul Eluard College and at the primary school of Molégès, during the week of May 14 to 18, 2018. The goal of this project was to bring interculturality to the public that was little aware of opportunities available to them via Europe. The students, as well as the teachers, were able to experience for the first time interculturality and non-formal education thanks to our international volunteers’ interventions.

Intercultural mentoring

The association coordinates an intercultural mentoring program: a space for exchange and mutual aid between a migrant person (the mentee) and a ‘local’ (the mentor). The project seeks to foster intercultural dialogue, participation and social inclusion. It presents itself as an opportunity accessible to anyone who wishes to get engages as an active citizen. In 2018, the association brought sponsorship 18 pairs and organized monthly reunions for 9 months.

Citizen Dialogue

Hors Pistes and other CAMI associations co-organized a citizen dialogue on the 17th of April at the Regional Chamber of Social and Solidary Economy in Marseile. An initiative that was made possible in colaboration with state services, young people and in the presence of Yannick Blanc, president of the Civic Service Agency and High Commisioner for Civic Engagement. This allowed a debate regardin Europe’s future and to collect the participant’s opinions on the EU and their ideas regarding actions and policies in the fields of citizenship, education, mobility, culture. The non-formal methods made of this debate an exercise in participatory democracy. The aim was to get the participants decide collectively on their priorities concerning Europe and to develop proposals in this area which were presented to Mr Blanc and then forwarded to a national and European level.