Capitalizing on understanding, recognizing, and going further
How is Education for Citizenship and International Solidarity (ECSI) implemented in practice in the French overseas territories? Based on a webinar organized as part of the program COREOM, This new synthesis offers a cross-cutting analysis of initiatives undertaken by civil society organizations in French Guiana, Réunion, Mayotte and Guadeloupe.
Practices already in place, drawing on multiple heritages
One observation runs through all the testimonies: civil society organizations do not always explicitly identify with Global Citizenship Education (GCE). Yet, their approaches fully embody its principles. Popular education, active learning methods, regional mobility, cooperation between neighboring territories, environmental projects co-created with young people, intergenerational knowledge transfer, engaged artistic creation… These are all initiatives that develop critical thinking, connect the local to the global, strengthen empowerment, and build active citizenship. GCE appears here not as a label, but as an educational stance within local communities.
A structured reading based on four approaches
To facilitate understanding – without confining projects to rigid categories – the synthesis is based on four main pedagogical approaches:
- Popular education and critical pedagogies, which start from situated knowledge and make participants co-authors of learning.
- The pedagogy of experience and action, where one understands by doing; ;
- The pedagogy of encounter and mobility, which allows us to experience regional solidarity and to move beyond an isolated view of the issues.
- The bridges between formal and non-formal education, which bring together schools, associations, artists, scientists and local communities.
Cross-cutting lessons for the future
This document is intended for associations, schools, local authorities, institutions, and partners wishing to better identify the ECSI (Education for Global Citizenship) dimension of their projects, structure their educational approaches, foster regional collaborations, or strengthen their capacity to engage with national and international donors and networks. Beyond individual experiences, common benchmarks are emerging:
- The importance of grounding learning in lived experience.
- The need to link local action and regional interdependencies.
- The central role of young people as actors and not simply beneficiaries.
- The value of horizontal cooperation, based on reciprocity.
The summary also suggests ways to go further: strengthening recognition of these initiatives, better structuring their global citizenship education (GCE) dimension, consolidating regional alliances, and promoting dissemination among overseas territories. Because recognizing what already exists is often the first step to amplifying collective impact.