Opis organizacije

The organisation "Le Cercle" is part of what is called, in Belgium, a non constraint help to youth (AMO - Aide en Milieu Ouvert). It is a place where young people can ask for support regarding any difficulty they are meeting in their lives: at home, at school, about health, relationships, finances...
The organisation has a local range of actions, since it works on four different municipalities (Ciney, Hamois, Somme-Leuze and Havelange). Though it works with all young people, Le Cercle has a more specific attention towards marginalised, isolated or at risk young people and their families.

In order to achieve its goals, the organisation has developped different activities where active listening and participation will allow the young people to receive the support needed.
The organisation has two levels of actions...:
1. Individual, where active listening and accompanying the young person is the core of the action;
2. Collective, by the creation and implementation of activities whose objective is either to contribute to social inclusion of the young people within their own community, either to work on awareness about essential topics such as addiction, school dropout, images on social media, bullying...

...And three axis of intervention:
1. psycho-social individual support (NOT PART OF THE VOLUNTEER'S TASKS) : accompany young people and their parents in administrative work related to school, emotional and sexual life, education, relationships among the family...
2. collectives projects: theatre workshops, cultural excursions , workshops for parents, summer camps... Raising awareness workshops in schools about social medias, bullying, addictions... Daily, the organisation office is open to allow young people to meet the workers whenever they want, but also to spend some time together, have lunch, and so on...
3. community projects : on a regular basis, activities and projects are implemented in order to modify and improve the young people environements, by calling out to public authorities or politics if needed

On a concrete level, the organisation implements several activities such as:
- Diver'cités: meeting with the young people living in housing estates to bring animations such as crafts, workshops, circus activities... every wednesday. The objectives are to provide access to alternative leisure time activities, to raise awareness about sensitive topics, and to give young people from housing estate an opportunity to get to know about Le Cercle and what support it can offer them
- Sac'ados: expeditions focused on sport and/or culture for the young public of the organisation, together with kids from a nearby asylum seekers centre. This activity, once a month, aims to facilitate access to culture and sport as well as contribute to the intercultural understanding.
- Kot'idien: meeting once every two wednesdays for young people living on their own and having different questions. It's also a space for them to meet people being in the same situation than them
- Improvise-toi: Theatre workshops, organised every thursday. The activity gathers children from an asylum seekers centre nearby, children from a specialised school, and children in contact with Le Cercle. The objectives are to raise the self confidence and encourage the intercultural mixity.

But the MAIN activity that the volunteer will participate in is called "Chacun sa yourte".
This pilot project adresses school drop outs from an alternative perspective. Its target group is young people being 15 years old or less and being about to drop or already have dropped out from school. During one week, a group of maximum five of these young people are offered a space, different from school (a yurt, to be precise), where to reflect about their difficulties at school and initiate a reflection about how to solve them.
This project is taking place once every two weeks, with a different group of young people every time.

Le Cercle is also part of a non-formal associative network called "Droûve tès-oûyes"(DTO). It is described as a "short circuit network of solidarity for socio-cultural profit". The members are active in the municipality of Havelange and are "associations of natural persons". They all share common values. Below, the list of member organizations:

Bibliothèque PAPYRUS
Centre Culturel de Havelange
CPAS de Havelange
Foyer des jeunes de Havelange
Foyer l’Aubépine
Gal Condroz Famenne
Institut de Schaltin
Maison Médicale MEDICI
Vis-à-vis

Four times a year, the organizations meet in order to increase the mutual resources, share, develop new common projects and galvanize the social work in general. The gatherings often lead to workgroups and then to concrete local actions. Thanks to this collaboration, Le Cercle was able to create the pilot project "Chacun sa yourte" in partnership with "Le Foyer l'Aubepine" thanks to the “Amarrages” projects (European Social Fund).