Objectif Réussite, a key player in equal opportunities in the Lille area

Created in 2006, the Objectif Réussite association is made up of around twenty volunteer students from EDHEC Business School committed to greater equality of opportunity. Each year, they support more than a hundred young people through partnerships with four secondary schools, one middle school and two social hostels in the Lille metropolitan area. Here's a look at their latest news and plans for the future.

What are the main initiatives undertaken by Objectif Réussite?

We work in three main areas:

• Promoting academic success: via weekly tutoring sessions in our partner establishments. These sessions take the form of personalised homework help.
• Ensuring quality career guidance: every year we organise a fun career guidance forum called "Objectif Orientation", as well as a dedicated programme called Sav'OR (for Savoir s'Orienter) which offers lectures and cover letter workshops for secondary school students.
•     Empowerment through culture: We organise monthly cultural outings within the MEL to awaken cultural curiosity. This commitment to cultural openness is crowned during the winter holidays by our biggest project: a week-long cultural trip to a European metropolis offered to 38 secondary school pupils from REP+ (Priority Education Network) schools.
  
  

What are the main challenges you face?

The first challenge is to get young people interested in our tutoring and support sessions. So we visit many of the classes in our partner schools to present our work and tell them about our support methods and results. We also give the floor to former pupils, who speak in their own words about what we do for their fellow pupils.

The second challenge is to provide practical help in a fun way, without resorting to lectures. In this way, we create a real bond of trust with the students we support. Each member of the association follows the same pupils (two or three young people) throughout the year. The result is a truly personalised approach.

What do you think has had the biggest impact this year?

We are very proud of the cultural trip organised to Lisbon last February. This trip enabled 38 secondary school pupils from REP+ schools to discover a European capital, to open up to another culture and to grasp all the cultural and historical richness of such a trip. This reinforces the open-mindedness of the young people we follow, as well as their curiosity about the world around us and its riches.  It's an emancipating trip, enriching in human, cultural and other ways.

How are these students monitored over time?

Our sessions take place on a weekly basis, which ensures regular monitoring of our students from an academic point of view.

As well as academic support, we also help our students on a personal level, helping them to develop important life skills. Many give us news of their personal development and the successes they are achieving in their daily lives. Our commitment to them doesn't end when they leave school with us, and we're always delighted to hear about their successes, both academic and personal.

What plans do you have to develop your activities over the coming years?

From next year, we aim to develop two new partnerships: one with the Collège Maxence Van Der Meersch in Roubaix and the other with the SAUMNA hostel. The aim of these partnerships is to provide our support to a growing number of young people. All our partnerships are part of the Cordées de la réussite national scheme, an initiative that is particularly close to our hearts and to which we are fully committed.

In the long term, we also want to broaden our cultural outings by opening them up to several partnerships, beyond our current collaboration with Collège Lucie Aubrac in Tourcoing. The aim is to make more young people aware of culture and offer them enriching opportunities outside the traditional school setting.

Finally, we are developing partnerships with corporate foundations. These collaborations enable us to diversify and strengthen our support for young people, offering them additional resources and opportunities to succeed.

How can EDHEC graduates support you?

There are several ways in which you can help us with our projects:

• Support us financially via our permanent online kitty (https://www.helloasso.com/associations/or-objectif-reussite/formulaires/1) or, from December onwards, by participating in the crowdfunding of the cultural trip to a European metropolis offered to 38 students from the Lucie Aubrac secondary school in France's REP+ region.
• Participate in our "Objectif Orientation" career forum, held every year on the last Saturday in January on the EDHEC campus, as a speaker presenting your sector of activity and profession.
  Relay, share and like our publications on social networks.
• Sponsor us if your company has a foundation or support mechanisms for associations working on a daily basis in the public interest.

 
Our social networks: 

             Website: objectif-reussite-edhec.org

             Instagram: @oredhec 

             Facebook: Objectif Réussite

             LinkedIn: Objectif Réussite