School failure is a major cause of social and professional exclusion among youngsters. It is seldom to meet youngsters who would be totally opposed to school. Most of the time they are most stressed by school system because they haven’t found their place. Another way would be to propose youngsters leaving in deprived area (“jeunes des quartiers” in French) an alternative pedagogical approach based on a positive experience acquired outside school. A voluntary experience enables to acquire and/or develop skills and competences that could be most useful for pupils faced to difficulties and sometimes show them the road back to school. Volunteering is part of non formal and informal learning enhanced by the Copenhagen process. Among an association, youngsters apply theoretical knowledge learned at school, enrich their social network, acquire or develop skills and competences, exchange good practices in learning.

The main aim of the Comenius project « Success at School through Volunteering » would be to propose youngsters leaving in difficult areas a pedagogical approach to enhance a voluntary involvement to succeed at school. The SAS project would propose pedagogical sessions to youngsters around topics allowing them to value learning, to build a path with school between knowledge acquired through volunteering and knowledge required at school. These sessions would be supported by a pedagogical mentoring in order for pupils to be aware of their potential, to value the non-formal and informal learning and find a way back to school.