Since 2004, the “Success Today” association has supported hundreds of young high school graduates from the suburbs or difficult neighborhoods throughout France to achieve their dreams of higher education. It organizes intense preparation courses every summer.
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About thirty young people, from Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Étienne or Alès, are meeting from July 16 to 28 in the premises of the association “Success today”, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. All young graduates, with honors, and coming from underprivileged backgrounds. They are preparing for their return to higher education.
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On the program: 55 hours of lessons in history-geography, mathematics and sports sessions. Micheline Huvet Martinet is a volunteer within the association, she wants to help them break the “glass ceiling” above their heads.
“They are almost all scholarship holders and we, our goal is to practice the republican pact of equal opportunities, social mobility because many of them do not dare. They say ‘Sciences Po, it’s not for me because I’m in my building bar in La Courneuve or Saint-Denis’. There is a form of self-censorship. “
“In my family, I am the first to have the baccalaureate”
During the break, one of the students, who wants to return to Sciences Po later, recognizes that“there is a social reproduction”. “I discovered Bourdieu and I said to myself ‘OK, I am going to make the statistics lie’. For example, in my family, I am the first to have the baccalaureate and to go to higher education.” Among the alumni who have gone through this internship, some have created a company or joined the senior administration.
The association “Success Today” helps about 150 young people, from first to final year, with a single objective to guide them to their higher education.