France
Le Club Barbès
Compter sur demain has a partnership with Le Club Barbès,an academic support and culture integration association in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at la Goutte d’Or.
Today, the Barbès Club provides educational support to around thirty middle and high school students thanks to the involvement of volunteers. These young people also take part in cultural outings and trips to broaden their horizons. To strengthen its actions, the association plans to recruit an employee and a civic service volunteer.
For the past four years, Comter sur demain has been involved in the “Diplomates de la Diversité” program, which consists of cultural exchanges between the young students from the Barbès Club and the American students in the neighborhood of la Goutte d’Or and in the United States.
The founder of the Barbès Club presents the history and values of this beautiful project.
Dreams of future Grants
At the end of 2016, Compter sur demain launched a project to award scholarships to young people of legal age from the Children’s Social Welfare and the Judiciary Protection of Minors.
When they turn 18 some of them can pretend to a renewable “jeunes majeurs” contract for 3 months to a year. However, this arrangement is becoming rare, the contract period has significantly been shortened, and even totally disappeared in some departments. These young people apprehend the day they will legally become adults: their familial or shelter support ends brutally for many of them. Without a solid familial nor financial support they access to a fragile independence and are pushed into short-term trainings with a random financing. These early and forced independence can have tragic consequences: 20% of homeless people left the parental home before the age of 16, a proportion 6 times higher than in the rest of the population.
Compter sur demain wishes to help the projects of these young people by financing concrete actions: access to training (registration fees, purchase of supplies ...), to independence (driving license, equipment ...) and more generally, any need to favor a good start in life by letting them dream.