EC -CITIZENSHIP - engage event

4 students in the Erasmus+ class (2nd year) work on a value : “Courage”. They have to prepare a 3-part event about “ENGAGE” based on the work of 3 groups, the other two being organised by two other groups about “pride” and “courage”. They have to think about this value by following 5 guidelines : respecting a time limit (45 minutes), answering a problem in the form of a slideshow that they write in French but present in English, illustrating their thinking by creating posters on concrete examples, interceding with the public (3 high school classes and 3 teachers), inviting an outsider to testify about his experience related to the topic.3 students announce their event by making a poster. They organize this event as follows :

First, they explain the questions they asked themselves from the citizenship value : What is a citizen? Why do we have to protect our environment ? What is being responsible ? How to act like a citizen in face of environment problems ? They answer these different questions by proposing the answers first at the individual level and then at the local and national level, to finish on a comparison with other European countries. Various topics are discussed such as food consumption, water and energy consumption, transport, sorting, plastic, agriculture or the preservation of animal species and natural heritage (zoos, national parks). An analysis is proposed of a controversial project, the Willow Project, led by the American company Conoco Philipps, which aims to produce at least 576 million barrels of oil over 30 years, worth about $7 billion. In total, three drilling sites have been approved to expand within the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, an area of more than nine million hectares. The 4 students propose an analysis of inspiring characters or actions through posters that they analyze during their presentation: Greta Thunberg, sorting in Switzerland and the Vatnajökull National Park located in the south west of Iceland, whose central element is the Vatnajökull glacier which is the largest glacier in Europe, covering 8% of the Icelandic landmass.

Then a representative of Dunkirk city hall came to present a project that will take place in a few weeks in the city "all actors for dunkirk", which is an event that will highlight all forms of engagement of inhabitants in the form of fun challenges intended to involve citizens in the energy transition, then he explained what the participatory budget is, a participatory democracy process practiced by the city of Dunkirk in which citizens can allocate part of the budget of their local authority, generally to investment projects. 

To conclude the ENGAGE event, the 3 students asked the public to write a slogan on one of the 3 values of commitment on which the presentations of the 3 groups (pride, courage or citizenship) focused.

The audience was attentive during the presentation of the 3 students and their guest. They were enthusiastic about creating a slogan. The 3 students selected 5 of the proposed slogans and a show of hands was conducted to elect the favourite of the audience. The slogan that won was : “Courage is the weapon of the bold“