DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTITIES (FRANCE)
Comité de Coordination pour la Promotion et en Solidarité
des communautés en difficulté: Migrants et Tsiganes, Toulouse
(Coordination Committee for the Advancement of and in Solidarity with Communities facing difficulties : Immigrants and Roma, Toulouse).

This Coordination Committee dates back to 1971 and in 2001 the following associations joined its ranks : the Comité Médico-social pour la santé des migrants (Medical-social Committee for Immigrants’ health) and the Association Tsiganes Solidarités (Solidarity Roma Association).

During the 1960’s some volunteers began working with groups of immigrants and Roma in the city of Toulouse and its outskirts. The first professional initiatives were implemented in the area of informal education first and then in the health field.

Ever since then it has always been the will of those responsible to foster the insertion of immigrants and Roma by developing:

  • Neighbourhood care, bringing help as close as possible to their place of residence;
  • Integral care, mindful of the following parameters : health, housing, economy, school enrolment, training, family history and especially inter-cultural considerations;
  • Multi-disciplinary care headed by different groups of social and health workers with a view to meeting the needs of the whole person in consonance with their particular history.

The CCPS puts a high priority on school-related activities that can be grouped into three categories:

  • School mediation;
  • School accompaniment;
  • Specific school enrolment actions.

School mediation:
The aim is to foster the acceptance of immigrants and Roma in educational centres. The idea is to close the cultural gap between the educational institution and the immigrants and Roma as well as to help these two groups better comprehend the operation of that institution. School mediation begins as early as pre-school in order to facilitate the incorporation of the children into school as early as possible.

School accompaniment:
For students from ages 6 to 16 the CCPS puts on extra-curricular accompaniment workshops either in the educational centre itself or in cultural centres managed by the association. What is special about these workshops is that they propose activities that reinforce school learning while also fostering socialisation and citizenship (reading, computers, field trips, cultural expression, etc.).

Specific school enrolment actions:
In the case of young people between the ages of 12 and 16 that cannot be guided towards traditional schooling, the CCPS, with the support of the Educational Administration, has implemented what is known as a «bridge course» and a school enrolment workshop allowing them to hold on to acquired knowledge while awaiting reincorporation into the educational system.

The CCPS also proposes accompaniment designed for young people signed on to the National Centre for Distance Education in order to compensate for a lack of pedagogical accompaniment.

Although the main beneficiaries of CCPS actions are children and youth up to the age of 16, parents are also requested to commit to and participate in the monitoring and accompaniment process of their children as regards both school and extra-curricular activities.