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The Fête le Mur association in La Courneuve and by the People for Community Recovery in Chicago launch Chicago-La Courneuve, An eye for an eye

Category

Corporate & other activities

Paris, May 29, 2009

A programme that brings together young people from La Courneuve, a town to the northeast of Paris, and Chicago was recently launched on the initiative of Europe 1 and the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation. The goal is to help young people aged 10 to 18 living on public housing projects in La Courneuve and Chicago become stakeholders in their respective neighbourhoods by taking part in a photography and video project and through an exchange of experiences.

Introductory photography workshops have been organized since April 2009 on either side of the Atlantic by the “Fête le Mur” association in La Courneuve and by the “People for Community Recovery” in Chicago.

The “Fête le Mur” association, created by French tennis champion Yannick Noah fourteen years ago, initially developed a social inclusion programme that gives young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in France the chance to learn to play tennis. The association has now extended the scope of its activities to include training courses, school assistance, cultural outings, and more.
People for Community Recovery” enables young people from the underprivileged neighbourhood of Altgeld Gardens, a district of Chicago where Barack Obama was once a community worker, to join in debates on the various environmental and social issues facing their city.

The two associations have teamed up to launch a number of joint initiatives including the creation of a blog that will enable young people from both countries to exchange views on a range of subjects every week, such as sport in their home towns, city government, school programmes, video games and fashion. Each young person will be paired up with a counterpart and given language instruction to help them communicate. The pair will then work on a particular angle of a report while benefiting from the advice of professional photographers. Their work will go on to form the subject of an exhibition in January 2010. Two trips will also be organized on either side of the Atlantic in autumn 2009.

This programme is supported by Samsung, which will supply thirty digital cameras, six laptop computers and two digital video recorders, and the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation.

Contact Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation

Quiterie Camus - 33 1 40 69 67 29 - qcamus@lagardere.fr

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