Pistes-Solidaires (PS) is a French association of nonformal education founded in 2002. Pistes-Solidaires develops its projects and actions according to the 4 pillars of education of UNESCO: learning to know, to be, to do, and to live together and with others. It develops educational programs to help people become responsible citizens who can identify and solve environmental local problems, and build a tolerant, respectful, and sustainable society. It has three main departments: youth education and mobility (in Europe and worldwide), social and educational innovations (responding to digitalization and Green Deal challenges), and European Citizenship (interventions in schools, theatre shows on the EU, debates, exhibitions, fight against fake news, creation of educational materials, access to objective information). Pistes-Solidaires has developed several awareness-raising and action-oriented campaigns for and with young people about EU policies and climate action. The organization has been a Europe Direct Information Centre since 2013 and has coordinated and participated in several European projects, including Erasmus+ (Make Europe Great Again), and CERV (E-Unite). PS is active in empowering the local rural community and offering programs, trainings, and informal education activities. The organization works with 7 dedicated project managers and coordinators with educational, financial management, and communications backgrounds, and has a wide network of partners in Europe and worldwide.
Project Role
Pistes-Solidaires will be responsible for conducting and summarizing local research, organizing the educational trainings and practice-oriented workshops in France, recruiting and managing local participation in the international hackathon and the visual storytelling events, contributing to the preparation of the final town hall meeting, and preparing local participants for discussions with policymakers. Pistes-Solidaires will also be involved in local communications and disseminating project results both locally and internationally.
Project Activitites
In France, the project activities will be implemented in the South West, in the Pyrenées Atlantique province (département). If we exclude the Atlantic coast with Biarritz and the main city of the province, Pau, the entire area is rural, including a large part of the Pyrenees valleys. It is composed of small villages gathering less than 200 inhabitants each (more than 500 villages). The economy is based on agriculture and tourism (mostly in the mountains). The area is one of the most vulnerable to climate change and is affected by extreme weather events, like floods, lack of snow, and drought against which the level of engagement seems very low and slow. One of the reasons is the lack of local cooperation within and among villages.