Objectives

Addressing early school leaving

Many explanations can be given when a child drops out of school : absenteeism, poor school performances, transgressive behavior, misunderstanding of the teacher's requests, ... combined to stressful familly or social situation.
Les Aroéven work on implementing specific actions to prevent dropouts and to promote equal opportunities for all students.
Mentoring, self-esteem, co-training, educational support, collective school training for holidaycamps' leaders.

Education for citizenship

Les Aroéven have been involved for many years in education for citizenship activities

In schools

Organizing elections for pupils’ delegates is a way to empower students and to encourage their participation in the school life.  It is an important tool in the education for citizenship and democracy.
Les Aroéven have an experience in helping the educational community prepare and organize the election of pupils’ delegates. Our movement is also involved in the training of the delegates once they’ve been elected.

All year long, our youth workers work with elected students to identify collective projects they could carry in their schools, projects that would benefit every pupil and that would boost the students' participation.

Outside of school, in the local community

Les Aroéven are involved with youngsters elected in Youth Local Councils, where they can experience first-hand citizenship and participate in the public decision-making processes.   

Our movement also considers holiday camps, training for young leaders, youth exchanges … as spaces where citizenship can be learnt and experimented. 

Combating discriminations and prejudices

Schools should be a place where one learns to live in a community, without race, sex, religious or social discriminations.
Les Aroéven develop co-trainings for students and teachers so that a dynamic promoting a better coexistence and an openness to others and the world is created.
They support the teaching of dialogue, listening, tolerance and respect.

Preventing incivilities and violence in school

Peer mediation is a major action of our movement. It is used as a method to prevent incivilities and violence in school, but it also helps raise pupils’ participation to their school life and improve the sense of belonging to the community.

Many schools and town councils have decided to work with les Aroéven to implement their pedagogical approach of peer mediation in order to pacify the school climate on a long term basis, while creating a culture of non-violence.

Peer mediation helps

• Understanding and respecting the school rules
• Creating a dialogue between the different  school actors : pupils, parents, teachers, administrative staff, youth workers…
• Promote a culture of non-violence. 

Its main objectives are :

• To prevent violence in school
• To raise pupils participation and sense of responsibility when mediating a conflict
• To improve students’ social competences
• To improve relations between students and between teachers and students  

Our peer mediation method has been awarded best pedagogical innovation at the « Forum des enseignants innovants » in Lyon in 2011. 

In october 2015,  la Fédération des Aroéven met with partners from Spain, Italy and Romania to exchange methods and tools to educate youth to non-violent conflict resolution. On this occasion,  a European charter on basic principles for this “education to non-violent conflict resolution” was written (read here), a plan of action adopted for our informal network (read here)  and a synthesis of public policies compiled (read here).

This project  was supported by the Eramus + programme.

Environment and sustainability education

The Federation des Aroeven has been campaigning, for over 60 years, for a permanent and global education for children and teenagers, allowing them to question the society they live in. This goal can be achieved partly via the (re-) appropriation of social and environmental spaces.

All of our general activities are a chance to discuss environment, climate change, global warming and sustainable ways of life:

• Holiday camps and leisure time activities,
• Camp leaders’ trainings
• School trips and projects …

La Fédération des Aroeven is also actively involved in specific environmental and sustainability education projects

• Agenda 21 for schools, recreational centres
• Eco-messengers trainings
• European youth exchanges

Our association considers educating to environment and sustainability as being essential for the promotion of active citizenship and international solidarity.

The Fédération des Aroéven is a member of the main French associative networks promoting an education for environment and sustainability : Réseau Ecole et Nature (REN) ; Graine Ile de France ; Collectif Français pour l’Éducation à l’Environnement vers un Développement Durable (CFEEDD).

European and international projects

Developing international projects for youngsters and giving them the opportunity to meet their peers and discuss the challenges they face is an important part of our organisation's mission.

Helping the educational community to research new methods and compare its findings is another one : action-researches are developed at European and International levels each year on various subjects : peer mediation, education to diversity and against discriminations, preventing early school leaving...

Les Aroéven are committed to helping Youth build their own path to European citizenship

Our movement believes in a Europe built through citizens’ active participation, this is why les Aroéven supports European projects written by youngsters in their school clubs, associations, by informal groups…

Aware that solidarity can only exist if it is based upon reciprocity, les Aroéven also supports projects, written in cooperation with local actors, aiming at hosting European groups.

Les Aroéven promotes the idea of a « step-by-step » mobility  

Our movement has been promoting for sixty years a permanent and global education. They advocate for youth mobility programmes that will allow our children to discover new environments, ways of life, whether it is during a school trip or a holiday camp. We believe European and international mobility is a culture that still need to be built and this can be done, from a young age, step by step via:

• School camps and discovery classes
• Holiday camps
• Language stay
• Youth exchange
• Student mobility programme

International solidarity project

Les Aroéven defends lifelong learning

As a pedagogical researching movement, les Aroéven are involved in the educational community training : teachers, trainers, youth leaders, … Sharing best practices with our European and international partners is essential to pedagogical innovation.

This is why we are committed to:

Develop and support pedagogical researches at international level.
Be involved in the training of the European educational community​.
Strengthen the European and intercultural education of teachers and youth workers.

Les Aroéven supports education programmes for international solidarity

To understand the challenges met by Youth and the educational community in Europe, one also has to look at what is happening in the world. Les Aroéven work with youngsters willing to develop international solidarity projects. Our movement also advocates for international solidarity when working on environmental and sustainable development projects. 

Discovery classes - school stays - educational activities

Experiencing school differently

Les Aroéven defend the right for every pupil to be part of a discovery class at least once in his/her student life.

 
Discovery classes are highlights in a student life

School stays, such as discovery classes, integration school trips … are a chance for children to look at look at their learning environment differently, to develop new competences, to become independent, and to learn about collective life.

For teachers, to undertake a school trip with a class is always a very rich experience, pedagogically, and in terms of relations both with the pupils and their parents.

A school trip is not a parenthesis in the school year. It is a school project built by the educational community in order for the children to experience new learning processes and to experiment concretely their theoretical knowledge.

To leave for a discovery class is a chance for the child to:

• Become more independent: learning to manage aspects of daily life, to take responsibilities, to be curious and creative
• Learn collective life: learning social codes, but also tolerance, developing a civic approach to life in a community.
• Better seize the environment: discovering and understanding your environment and its diversity, understanding the role you can play in it​
• Improve scientific skills: understanding information, observing, researching, comparing, putting forward hypothesis and verifying them...​
• Deepen academic knowledge: writing, reading, counting, questioning, communicating… Improving those skills by experiencing them in a different context.

Promoting youth participation

Les Aroéven as a pedagogical movement promotes the idea of a permanent and global education. Our idea is to contribute to a change in society thanks to education and citizens’ participation.

Our youth workers and educators are trained to assist teenagers and children in their civic development, questioning society, at school and during their leisure time activities.

Youth participation can be achieved when youngsters are empowered with the development of their own projects and their voices heard.

Les Aroéven aim to contribute to young people’s involvement in the community’s life by:

• Hosting volunteers (Service civique)
• Helping school clubs  (Maison des Lycéens) with their collective projects
• Training young leaders in project and group management
• Educating to the management of school clubs and associations

Training and supporting educational actors

The Fédération des Aroeven is a pedagogical research movement created over 60 years ago and still evolving, thanks to the commitment of the educational community.

Our movement is actively involved in researching new teaching methods; it is involved in the training of teachers, youth workers and other professionals from the education sector.

Our actions are twofold : in the non- formal education field as well as in the formal one.

In the formal education field

Our association was recognized with a certification from the French Education Ministry as an “educational actor complementary to state schooling” which allows our staff to intervene inside public schools. Our actions :

• Training the educational community (teachers, school directors, guidance counsellors, ..)
• Leading workshops for multidisciplinary teams on a variety of subjects
• Coordinating the implementation of educational programmes and projects
• Assisting the educational community with school projects, carrying out a reflexion and researches on a specific topic​

Partnership with the French Ministry of Education means that we are involved in the training of teachers (initial and vocational ones) and other members of the educational community (including parents, educators...).
Les Aroéven believes in the importance of organising trainings for interdisciplinary teams, from all hierarchical levels.

In the non-formal education field

Our association, certified by the Youth Ministry as a movement “d’éducation populaire”, is involved in :

• Training summer camp leaders and youth workers
• Organizing follow-up trainings for youth leaders on specific themes  
• Comparing working methods at European level