As more and more young people drop out of secondary school, the association "L'Année Lumière" in Lyon is offering them a one-year programme to regain their self-confidence and get to grips with the realities of the working world.
Through workshops, they are confronted with concrete and entrepreneurial situations.
The Year of Light
Opening: 2019
Location: Lyon, France
Number of students: 80
Status: Association 1901 (Students have to pay)
Website: https://www.annee-lumiere.org/
"The principle of our school is that we can take on greater challenges together than alone. Even if sometimes it is more complicated. It's like the expression: "alone you go faster, but with two you go further". This is the power of teamwork. Learning to collaborate in diversity allows us to succeed in even greater projects.
Claire Bleton-Martin, Director
L'Année Lumière is an institution based on a collaborative model, aimed at young people aged 16 to 25 who are losing their direction. The concept comes straight from Denmark.
There are no lectures or end-of-year exams; the pupils are not students but "learners". For a year, they are monitored by coaches, work in small groups and learn about entrepreneurship on the job, by collectively developing their own projects.
At the beginning of the year they create real businesses that will face real problems and generate real profits. They prepare themselves for the realities of the professional world, which is based on exchange, the use of social networks and group dynamics much more than on the art of the essay... In short, the idea is clear: to train for the concrete challenges of the professional world and to gain confidence in oneself.
The Lumière year is also a place of diversity: girls, boys, atheists, believers, all cooperate, an essential point to prepare students for today's world while anchoring them in multiple human and social relationships.
