OFCI, 132 Rue des Arts
59100 Roubaix
فرنسا
- Democracy and community development
- Human rights
- International/Cultural relations
- Media
- Youth and education
OFCI is currently managed by 5 administrators including a president, a secretary and a treasurer. The association is run by one full time employee and some international interns as well as by some punctual volunteers.
Our budget is between 5000 to 20'000 € per year depending on the project we are implementing.
Fundings are coming from different sources: the State, the Erasmus+ programme through various National Agencies, some local fundings, the member's contributions and donations from individuals.
Our main mission is to develop ties with other actors all around the world to develop education, citizenship, human rights, cultural, STEAM and all kind of projects we will find relevant.
Our objectives are to:
- Create a space where young people from different social, economical and cultural backgrounds can meet and design projects together.
- Build projects which are relevant, cost-effective, brainstormed out-of-the-box for today's and tomorrow's youth challenges.
- Develop the Leadership of our members through hard and soft skills trainings, omnipresent international atmosphere and leaping out of their comfort zone.
- Drive the democratic progress by reversing the roles in the decision making process and giving the citizens full power to decide what matter for them thanks to ICT.
The origins of the association are based on Human Rights defense with a first mission in the Gaza Strip (Palestine) few months after its creation. We gave to some public and private organisations financial donations that we had collected in France, we filmed a movie coverage that we screened during 3 public events in France that gathered around 80 people and the film has since then been published on Youtube where more than 1000 people have watched it.
After this experience, we thought that it was not enough but without opportunity to go back to Gaza Strip, we decided to go support the palestinian people in the refugee camps of Lebanon, we sent there for around 60 000 € of paramedical equipment and we traveled with our 4 members team our bagages full of medicines. Considering the success of the film from Gaza, we decided to make a new documentary to talk about the history and the life of people living in those refugee camps. The film has been screened during a single event at the Lille 2 university where 60 students gathered to watch it. It was a great success considering the average number of participants in events related with Palestine.
In July 2018, we have organized a Palestinian diner in the neighborhood where OFCI was born. 100 inhabitants gathered, paid their seat and stayed for the diner and the presentations.
Working on Palestine and Lebanon related activities was life changing for everyone who has been involved, we really want to keep going in this direction and develop new long term project with palestinian refugees in Lebanon that are going through intense challenges.
Outside of these projects in Middle East, OFCI has always wanted since 2012 to implement activities with other actors all around the world. Thanks to the Erasmus+ program, it became a reality in 2013 in Erasmus+ with the sending of french young people to more than 70 youth exchanges and training courses tackling different issues that young people are interested in such as citizenship, human rights, unemployment, entrepreneurship, interculturality and environment.
On a local scale, the organization is setting up public events that are designed to encourage young people and members of the organization to meet, as well as other inhabitants of the area. On a national level, we support young people to stand up for what they think is right, debate about different topics online and confront their ideas.