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. This leads a reaction of reject and as a consequence of exclusion of the school system. Philippe Meirieu, a French pedagogue, developed the “detour strategy” to avoid this negative reaction of youngsters, proposing them other activities, beyond school, that would allow them to learn in other ways. Some school mentoring, proposed by associations outside school, is an example of such activity : youngsters are proposed different kinds of activities allowing to learn a language, mathematics or any other discipline through games or social activities. Other actions such as tutoring provided by students who have succeeded in their studies and explaining that their ‘success story’ could also be the ones of the youngsters , are other examples of actions to give self confidence and hope to youngsters who feel lost and abandoned by school.

The main aim of the Comenius project « Success at School through Volunteering » is to offer youngsters living in difficult areas a pedagogical approach to enhance a voluntary involvement to succeed at school. The SAS project offers 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 are 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.