Regain

REGAIN was founded in 2017 with the mission to raise active and responsible involvement of youth into the social, cultural and sustainable life of our community.
The organisation is located in a rural area in La Borie Noble in the South of France.

We are ten people who live together following the principles of self sufficiency . We aim to grow, raise, trade, and use our own food and forestry products in an
ecologically regenerative and regional culture.

Our main goal is to practice fair, participatory, and effective self-governance as well as encourage diverse cultural practices and awareness of our interconnection with nature. Our axe is focus in giving the community possibilities to spend their time, to support bottom up initiatives of the community, improve social work and facilitate the integration of young and adult people into society especially those of rural areas by involving them in our work, and encouraging their creativity to help increasing youth and adult participation in both local community and society in general.

We organize seminars, conferences and youth exchanges in the field of entrepreneurship, employability, inclusion and innovation in our country and abroad. In our actions we provide career counseling, mentoring, sharing of innovative tools and we enhance the skills of youth in order to build the resilience and improvement of young people. We believe that active and responsible involvement of youth into the social, cultural and educational life of the communities can be achieved through development.

For that reason we share various activities: field crops, organic gardening, farm with sheep, chickens, horses, peacocks and bees, bakery, carpentry, pottery, dance, music, cooking and many others. We encourage manual work, creative expression, service, a sense of gratuity and respect for life in all its forms.

Our methods are Non-formal education, experiential learning or/and nature based and are developed by professional trainers working in the youth field. We share knowledge and create a supportive environment with different coaching techniques. For some years now,we have been hosting refugees and immigrants in order to help them in their paths to social inclusion in the community.

Our mission revolves around a main axis which is openness to others, a personal growth with the intention to blossom in the service of one another, so that community life is a source of life for all in sustainability and consciousness about the environment. We focus on nurturing, interpersonal understanding and mutual trust, as the foundation for a deeply connected human community. We want to create increased awareness of the need for the moderate use of natural resources, with coherence and unity of life.

Since the foundation of the organisation we have introduced several Erasmus + projects based on our mission. All the projects we have participated in are an extraordinary experience for the youth since they stimulate their personal development. Participants will increase their intercultural awareness, get new skills and increase their self-confidence, their capacity of initiative and their creativity. We have participated in many youth projects whose goal was to promote employability and the entrepreneurial spirit.

Objectives:

- Create innovative opportunities in connection with active citizenship, especially for the young people with fewer opportunities

- Increase the participation of young people and youth organisations in society, as well as in decision-making processes and the involvement of young people from all sections of the community (especially those who are at risk of social exclusion through disability, mental health issues and economic deprivation)

- Promote the dialogue between religions, human rights, cultural diversity, refugee migration and tolerance

- Promote employment and the inclusion of all young people, regardless of educational and social level or cultural background

- Contribute to a better knowledge of sustainability, natural resources and the use of them.

- Support and promote basic European values and democracy building in respect for the environment.

Experiences and our responsibilities relevant for this project application:

Our members have vast experience to work with different social origins of the population, willing to break stereotypes and build connections among cultures. We proposed handcraft, artistic and social workshops, coordinated by youth workers and supported by local experts of our community to stimulate the interest of young people towards intercultural relations promoting youth initiative. Practical tools like baking, pottery, working in the garden, cooking, dancing, theatre, singing, music sessions and social debate about actual subjects reinforced mutual comprehension and lead to a critical consciousness about conflict resolution.

Our staff has the experience of Erasmus+ projects KA1 and KA2 on sustainability involving balancing different concerns: environment, such as climate change; society, such as community; economy, such as affordability; and administration, such as health and safety.