The Ceméa see this New Education as an innovative conception of education and claim that a social transformation of the political and social environment is necessary. The Ceméa reiterate their fight for the values of laicity, democracy, fraternity, solidarity, and for human rights. They are committed to the construction through education of a social and political Europe, a Europe of the people, and are taking part in the organisation of a European civil society that can be seen and heard. The ideas of trust and of respect for the other are the very basis of any educational action.
Festival and popular education
A Movement for a New Education, the Ceméa are an openly activist organisation. As members of associations, daily actors, and politically active citizens, the militants of the Ceméa know that history, the practices of yesteryear, and the actions of today put the Ceméa at the centre of the development of a New Education.
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Public Relations Department
Education Department - Virginie Carletti, associate teacher at the Festival d'Avignon
CDJSFA
The CDJSFA - Centres de jeunes et de séjours du Festival d’Avignon (Youth centres of the Festival d’Avignon) - is an association founded in 1959 by Jean Vilar. Its goal is to make the Festival accessible to youths and adults from France and abroad, alone, in groups, or with their families. It organises stays which allow the participants to experience at once a cultural event and a holiday.
During the Festival, the CDJSFA focus on two things:
community centres open by day to college and secondary school students from the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region,
the organisation of the Workshops of thought on the Louis Pasteur Supramuros Avignon Université.
To know more:cdjsf-avignon.fr
Centres de jeunes et de séjours du Festival d’Avignon
J'y suis, j'en suis
J'y suis, j'en suis offers young people from Avignon, Grand Avignon and the surrounding area the chance to discover the Festival d'Avignon through a three to five-day stay without accommodation. It's a chance to experience the Festival in a different way, through a series of shows, workshops and meetings with artists, while sharing moments of conviviality.
Ceméa, in partnership with the Festival d'Avignon, is responsible for the educational and supervisory aspects of the programme.
Centres de jeunes et de séjours du Festival d'Avignon (CDJSFA) are offering three separate sessions at the Lycée Mistral in Avignon.
Participants can either join a group, accompanied by a teacher from the school, or register individually.
The dates of the 2025 courses:
Session 1: 4 to 6 July 2025 from 6e to 4e
Session 2: 7 to 11 July 2025 from 3e to terminale
Session 3: 15 to 17 July 2025 for 17 - 26 year olds
The registration form is available here for individuals and on request from the CDJSFA secretariat for groups, to be returned before Monday 5 May 2025. Further information from Virginie Carletti, Avignon Festival liaison teacher: service.educatif@festival-avignon.com
Secondary School Students in Avignon
The programme Secondary School Students in Avignon is a space dedicated to artistic and cultural education during the Festival d’Avignon, organised by the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. Organised in collaboration with the CDJSFA and implemented by the Ceméa, this immersion in the Festival d’Avignon takes the form of a 5-day stay during which secondary school students and apprentices from the region are able to attend four shows, meet artists, and take part in educational and cultural workshops to discover the energy of Avignon during the Festival.
The goals are:
encourage cultural openness,
initiate the students to various dramatic forms of contemporary creation,
give them the tools necessary to understand the shows,
sharpen their critical thinking skills.
To choose the schools which will take part in this programme fairly, we follow a number of criteria, such as:
ease of access to cultural infrastructure,
distribution throughout the region,
geographical distance from Avignon.
Furthermore, the relevance of the group project and the number of students taking part in it are also two key criteria.
In 2024, 9 schools and 140 students from Aix-en-Provence, Antibes, Arles, Istres, Marseille, Manosque and Salon-de-Provence took part in the programme.