12 young people from the association L’ENVOL acquire new soft skills in an artistic creation workshop, organized by TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation
December 12, 2023
Dunkirk
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Julie Covas, Cultural Dialogue and Heritage Manager at TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation
TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation puts youth at the heart of its commitments. Today we're receiving young people from L’ENVOL at the TotalEnergies site in Flanders. L’ENVOL has all the characteristics of the kind of structure we want to support, as the people who benefit from the association’s work are young people in vulnerable situations.
Perrine Fovez, Head of art and social transformation programs at L’ENVOL
L'ENVOL, is an art and social transformation center. It’s based on the idea that, deep within themselves, everyone can find the strength to bounce back, to look at a project differently. And art is how we help them do that.
Julie Covas
It’s a very recent partnership. TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation will support L’ENVOL for 2 years.
Perrine Fovez
Classe Départ, involves 12 young people who will spend the next 7 months together, and who are socially marginalized, have dropped out of school and are estranged from their families. What they need most is to regain their self-confidence, trust others and find renewed confidence in life.
Julie Covas
We’re delighted to welcome them to spend time today for a painting workshop with our residential artist, Marina Vandra.
Marina Vandra, Artist
Let’s go see my workshop!
Young people
Great, let’s go!
Marina Vandra
Working here is really interesting because it’s nothing like the environment where I usually work. It’s a time for creation, in partnership with the FRAC Grand Large des Hauts de France, TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation and the Oleum site. Creating opportunities like this to demystify art, make it more accessible and a natural part of our everyday life is really important to me. I’m going to outline in pencil, then stick on some scotch tape.
Young people
It’s like a photo!
Marina Vandra
Encounters like this are a bit like painting, you never know where it’s going to take you. You don’t know what seeds will be sown, but I do my utmost to give them every chance of taking root. You can start by drawing the shape you chose from the technical platform.
Mathéo, Participant in the Classe Départ program
I came here to see what it was like, and I really enjoyed it. I’d never seen inside a wind turbine before. It’s really huge!
Young people
Those are the pipes. That’s the wind turbine.
Perrine Fovez
This support by TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation is really important to help young people discover other places, arouse their curiosity and their desire to understand. When we observe the youngsters on the program, we can see a real change in behavior, the way they carry themselves, their self-assertiveness.
Mathéo
I’m on my own all the time usually, I do my own thing, but here, there’s a lot of emotion, we laugh a lot and we have a really good time. We lose track of time actually. And I’m moved by that, I like it.
Julie Covas
Our society needs social cohesion, a collective effort, and sharing. At TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation, we back programs that encourage social cohesion.
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Thank you to Marina Vandra, and to Céphora, Clara, Gabin, Jahson, Julie, Lila, Lilou, Luna, Marie, Mathéo, Naomi and Ottilie.
The workshop was held at the TotalEnergies Flanders site (Dunkirk), led by the resident artist Marina Vandra, as part of a cultural and educational approach, organized in partnership with Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France and thanks to the support from TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation.
