IDEA Awardee One World Citizen

Origin of the IDEA…

For the past three years and with the support of the Agence Française de Développement, the national educational programme Un Univers Citoyen, initiated by e-graine, has been helping to deconstruct the most common prejudices about migration. Indeed, 73% of French people feel misinformed on the subject of migration and consider that there are too many foreigners in France. Yet one-third of the French population has foreign parents or grandparents. This dissonance of perception reveals to what extent France is a country of immigration that is not aware of its origins. Moreover, the mass media and political elites seize current geopolitical catastrophes to present the figure of the immigrant as dangerous and disempowered.

The societal stakes are firmly set today, but they will be even more so tomorrow. Convinced that the pursuit of shared ambitions is fundamental to understanding the complexity of current transitions, e-graine wished to generate a transdisciplinary cooperative dynamic from the very beginning of the educational programme.

Our objective? To bring together, at different territorial levels (local and national), the actors of migration education to work collectively to overcome prejudices and respond together to the challenges of our society.

Main activities…

It is thus, at the crossroads of this societal observation and the cooperative approach that multi-actor consortia have been progressively formed. Composed of structures (local authorities, research, associations) and people with diverse expertise and experience, these consortia encourage an approach that goes against the trend of silo-based work and involves rethinking the relationships we have with each other. They make it possible to identify the resources and complementarities of each member. The two levels of intervention, local and national, feed each other. Migration education needs to be equipped so that citizens can take ownership of current issues. We have designed the exhibition "NOUS d'ailleurs", with the support of GENE (Global Education Innovation Award), Bridge 47 and researchers from various backgrounds (social sciences and migration experts) to address this need.

During the pandemic…

These collaborations were particularly easy during the first lockdown; our partners were suddenly more available. Nourished by active pedagogy methods, the exhibition aims to allow visitors to understand the mechanisms of constructing stereotypes, prejudices and discriminations before embarking for migrations in France, so that they can find their own answers to the French migratory reality.

The exhibition came out of the workshop in the heat of the pandemic and was presented to partners from various backgrounds (social workers, researchers, teachers, etc.). Although they were all convinced of the interest of this collaborative tool, health restrictions have not yet allowed us to present it to the public.

Developing the IDEA further…

We are still looking for programmers or presenters who would like to add this exhibition to their cultural programming. To date, the ambitions of the educational programme Un Univers Citoyen continue and are strengthened by two major orientations:

1. the creation, with European partners, of educational tools allowing to understand the European migration policy

2. the creation of links between research, popular education and the media in order to get out of the logic of working in silos and to have a clear and accessible message.

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