Living Together Mission
Since 2004, some 30 institutions have been cooperating to reach out to audiences unfamiliar with cultural institutions and combat discrimination in the field of culture. Through the pooling of resources and contacts, institutions work with social intermediaries. By addressing the challenges faced by a wide variety of audiences and adapting their offerings to better accommodate them, cultural institutions are finding that the improvements made benefit all audiences and make culture more accessible to all.
The “Living Together” mission brings together thirty-seven cultural institutions that work together to meet audiences unfamiliar with cultural institutions. Their aim is to make culture play its full role in the fight against exclusion and thus contribute to cultural democratization. They illustrate the variety of cultural places: museums, monuments, performing scenes (theatre, music, dance, etc.), cinemas, libraries and media centres, archives...
This mission was born in November 2003, at the request of the Minister of Culture and Communication. This mission, initially entrusted to the President of the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie to federate and amplify the actions carried out by the institutions of the Ministry in the fight against discrimination and acts of intolerance, responded to a need for exchanges and working together. Its action continued, amplified and
consolidated over the past twelve years, including the expansion to other cultural institutions and the structuring of a method.
To reach vulnerable audiences, the “Living Together” institutions have chosen to work with people who can take on a relay role. These relays can be volunteers, social workers, educators, facilitators, trainers, ...what counts above all is their motivation and their conviction that culture contributes to the construction of individuals. Their work may focus on learning French, school support, prevention, integration or restoration of the social bond.
A simple device has been put in place:
- in each establishment, a correspondent who establishes personalized relationships with these relays,
- free discovery, awareness and training sessions,
- appropriate mediations,
- preparation and assistance documents,
- tariff adjustments.
The strength of the system consists in pooling resources and contacts. Institutions communicate their programmes together in a joint quarterly letter. Each institution distributes it to its relays, thus encouraging the discovery by certain relays of establishments that they do not yet know.
To go in the same direction, discovery visits are also offered to the relays by all establishments.
Institutions and relays meet regularly to work on common topics. They drafted a charter to facilitate access to cultural institutions.
Every year, they meet in a forum that allows them to take stock and define new areas of work together, while promoting user-friendly exchanges between school correspondents and relays.
The institutions of the Vivre ensemble mission also put in place mediation actions and resources for people learning French. This dynamic is in line with the DGLFLF’s policy on cultural action in the service of the mastery of French.
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