Raising awareness

Educating people about citizenship and international solidarity

While most of our work is performed in the countries where we carry out our projects, we are also active in France informing students and the general public about the importance of solidarity and smallholder farming.

Education in Citizenship and International Solidarity (Éducation à la Citoyenneté et à la Solidarité Internationale, or “ECSI”) is a socio-educational initiative that helps people understand the complexity of the world and the phenomena behind inequalities, form an opinion and take action to help build a fairer and more sustainable world.

Each year, these actions reach 2,500 people, mostly students in primary, middle and secondary school, and university students in a number of cities

Primary school: Aminata learning kits

Workshops are held for primary-school students on smallholder crop and livestock farming, fair trade and climate change. The workshops present the story of Aminata and her parents, who are cocoa producers in Ivory Coast, and are based around learning kits which feature videos, games, discussion prompts and fair-trade chocolate for the students to taste. Each year, over 50 workshops are held in the Ile-de-France and Lyon regions.

Three learning kits are currently available:

Aminata in the Land of Chocolate
Aminata and Livestock Farming
Aminata’s Farm

Middle school: AVSF Junior

This learning module aims to teach middle-school students about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) defined in 2015 by the 193 member states of the United Nations. The workshops are based around games that encourage student participation and debate, with a focus on four of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):

Hunger and sustainable food (SDG 2), highlighting the benefits of smallholder farming and agroecology,
Health and well-being (SDG 3), highlighting the One Health concept,
Access to quality water (SDG 6), addressing issues such as access to water and reducing water consumption for smallholder crop and livestock farming,
Sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), demonstrating the importance of agroecology and fair trade.

The students are then asked to make short videos to show their classmates what they learned, with technical support from the On The Green Road association. A video competition with prizes is organised for everyone at the end.

Presentation booklet (FR)

Participation à des festivals solidaires

At Festival des Solidarités, our volunteers and civic-service workers lead round-table discussions, games and other activities to raise awareness about AVSF’s actions.

AVSF also takes part in Festival Alimenterre in several towns throughout France, organising conferences, café debates and testimonials by our partners in the Global South or colleagues working in the field.