Epinettes TV

A question of image
Images in questions

© Alain BACHELLIER

References
Testimonies
Ressources

Epinettes TV is a 2009 Applied Social Sciences student project elaborated in Reims Epinettes Community Centre
Epinettes TV has been selected to integrate Reims Discrimination Fight Festival

January 2011
 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

Epinettes TV : a social media

A new start in my professional life
I'll be 37 in 2011 and my professional occupation has been frstly based on a 13 years old
experience as an employment guidance offcer. I've worked in numerous dedicated structures on
those issues in Reims, France.
This type of job has to be considerated as a great opportunity to embrace a wide activities
spectrum. When you work as student job centre manager for example, you meet a lot of people :
• students how seek a job to earn a living
• professionnals how are looking for fast recruitment processes and effcient collaborators
• partners how aim to co-build solutions

So I've spent most of my time to design and organize a wide range of tools for all those different
needs. Those opportunities have been really exciting and I feel like I have learnt a lot but in fact
this doesn't offered a lot of possibilities to me.

Once you have worked inside the 4 or 5 professional structures how work on those issues in
Reims, the most exciting challenge how is presented to you is to become in 10 years a Pôle
Emploi1 agency manager.
This job can represent a great opportunity for a lot of people but this is no part of my professional
dreams.
In the same time, while I have helped a lot of people to give new directions to their professional
life, I have experienced that it could be a great idea to use those abilities for my own case. In
2008, I decided to give an end to a « one more time » contract at Pôle Emploi and found a
possibility to go back to University.
And so I've chosen to fnish an Applied Social Sciences Bachelor initiated in 2001 and I've been
graduated in june 2009.
***
This bachelor is frst been recognized as one of the best social cursus in town because its
pedagogic team is proposing a comprehensive sandwich program : we used to spend 2 weeks for
lectures at University and we alterned those learning periods with 2 weeks on our trainee
welcoming structure.
This type of organisation represents an ideal option to build a social project. In fact, if you use this
sandwich program in the most effcient way, a student have the possibility to draw a real-life social
project in 10 months with a « consultant team » (university professors + professionals how teach
over there) that most of the frms can't afford.

1 Pôle Emploi is the french jobs and skills public department

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 1

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

When you try to fnd solutions in social sciences theories at University, daily professional problems
met in situation are much more easy to study : this organisation is called by this pedagogic team
« integrated alternance ».
This concept means that you can choose a working/studying way to introduce the idea that
solutions can be found in theory.
In the meantime, studying everyday professional situations through a University lens can be the
best way to improve those knowledges with those « real life » experiences.
***
This Applied Social Sciences Bachelor has been also a great opportunity to go back to my roots :
I've been introduce to student associative activities during college. Those activities were
coordinated by a representative called Jean LEFEBVRE. After more than 15 years spent in this
institution, he began to run a Community Centre as a director in one of the worst depraved area
neighbourhood in our hometown, Reims.

After a warm reunion, he accepted to welcome me and another student called Pierre
MAUGENDRE as trainees for 10 monthsin 2009.

Epinettes TV concept : a modus operandi

A social order
This « not so new » boss has placed a simple order. The community centre includes a job and skills
service but it do not welcome so much « customers ». A lot of external structures offer a wide
variety of solutions for depraved area inhabitants, but those persons do not seem to be motivated
to integrate those programs.
So our director insisted on this need : motivation is not the main priority of inhabitants but
solutions exist !
We decided to go back to our university professors with this situation : we needed to know how
social workers could work on motivation.
Once we've studied this speciality through « integrated alternance » and psychology, we've learnt
that one of the most important idea around motivation is how anyone can build is own image :
• building his own image can represent a mirror to a wide range of diffculties/problems
• it can also represent an excellent mobility medium, far from a closed territory spirit

Once we've also studied which tools and materials could use inside the community center, the
idea of a social media and a collaborative blog rised rapidly.
We called it Epinettes TV : it was aiming to build a collaborative media project by gathering
neighboordhood energies in order to change this depraved area image.

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 2

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

The project philosophy is joigning a lot of gouvernance ideas :

• everybody has sharing and acting capacities
• improving singularities respect : fght against exclusion/discrimination
• allowing individual and group projects development

Reims Community Centres is a professionnal network that welcomes, gathers and coordinates
people's initiatives.
This framework is fnancially helped by different public structures such as Reims City Council or
French Republic Diversity Agency. With those funds,working teams are democraticaly elected to
mix inhabitants in a « conseil d'administration ».

Those administration councils take large part of decisions and working priorities : professionals
have with those decisions guidelines for their daily work.
The point is that inhabitants design together a common social development project for their own
territory.
Thoses schemes do not attempt to impose new rules but aim to help « real people » to design
them by themself.
This concept seems very nice ; but the main problem is that this network is very heterogenic :
those aims are understood in different manners between those different entities.
Reims' « Quartier des Epinettes », most known as the « Pont de Witry » has been a victim, through
traditional medias, of a very bad reputation from the late sixties : in fact, it's because people how
live in this depraved area accumulate a lot of different diffculties.

This image is not positive, it gives more power to exclusion and it eliminates a lot of chances to
this depraved area inhabitants to initiate informal discussions in town and even more to seek a job.

Epinettes TV has been designed to give a new echo to everyday life in this neighbourhood and to
be able to show positive projects / initiatives and to talk as well about all the diffculties that are
met over there.

It has to be noticed that this project is still elaborated, frst through an applied social sciences,
redesigned at the moment in order to meet European Journalism Master new requirements, and
today with this gouvernance lesson.

To conclude, this project aims to do really important work, for very little money, and to have a
major impact !

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 3

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

Concept : a social media

A community centre aims are already meeting a lot of gouvernance point of interest :
• transparency : an association has to promote its goals, working frames and results
• studying differences between applied social sciences trainees diagnosis / long term social
workers habits
• co-building promotion / enhance positive initiatives
Those new working forms are promoting new ways on how this institution can care and aim to
conquer resisting and offensive individuals.
Epinettes TV could have been frstly considerated as a gadget but its communication focused on
how a social media can draw new daily dialogue forms to work on diffculties causes (and not on
consequences as repression usually does).

Epinettes TV has became rapidly a familiar tool used to help the community centre team to
redefne its own position : a tool for dialogue between employees and volunteers and a tool for
networking inside and outside the community centre.

It has been also rapidly considerated as an opportunity to co-build a social project around values
on how a future social worker can consider his job (a social technician helping a community to
design its own tool).

As a future social worker and as a trainee, we had to explain several times that Epinettes TV can be
considerated as a tool to fnd new balances between different social programs and working
methods.

Epinettes TV can also become a tool to communicate inside and outside a community centre :
• clearly and rapidly communicate on what's going on
• manage transparency
• explain that dialogue and co-building is more than possible but desirable

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 4

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

Epinettes TV aims to become a tool for social changes : trainees have spend 20% of their working
time to build this concept and 80% of their time to explain to anyone how cares how it can work
or how it can be used and how we could fnd balances between all those forces.
This side of the work has been a force to adapte and rearrange different aspects of this project in
order to respect partners evolutions and ideas, main interlocutors are :
• Reims Community Centres management network
• Epinettes Community Centre employees, members & volunteers
• public involved in any manners
• social partners
• fnancial partners
• Reims discrimination fght festival organisation

While we were preparing Epinettes TV, we have also discovered that all thoses public and private
structures, groups and individuals do not understand a Community Centre aims the same way :
anyone can understand very quickly that a social media such as this project can represent a great
solution to fnd balances and represent a platform for co-decisions.

How to make it operational

One of the frst task you have to make for a social project design is to study what does not work
properly and where diffculties are met.
As we were working on a social media project, we could discover that there was no real Reims
Community Centre Network communication service.
This network only provides a static website (agenda facilites are for example not used) and
traditional general leafets.

Results could be shown on a social media and Epinettes TV can become a solution for inner and
outside communication in order to optimize results and to argue on how the work is done for
fnancial and political partners.

Issues
• gathering different points of view / fnd balances between different types of partners
• initiate image literacy
• a social media is not a virtual activity : it has to promote everyday people image by
themself
• a social media can be considerated as an alternative and autonomous tool to promote

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 5

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

solutions

Aims
• communicate around a social media project is also promoting Community Centre
activities
• take common decisions through a Watching Commity
• deliver a new and positive image on how people live and work in a depraved area /
Community Centre
• a social media as to become a pedagogic tool for social workers
• gather internal and external projects in a unique and interactive agora2
• online audience statics and cooperative social workers tools will ensure a clear view on
results / way of working

First Results
• designing, preparing a project is very different from making it operational
• point of interests are different from the ones we expected (priority given to children)
• absolute necessity to have journalistic habilities

Rule of Law
• introduction on image use
• introduction to Creative Commons3 and Copyright
• content moderation workshops

Risk control
• if this project do not gather any contribution, Epinettes TV could organise workshops to
collect fresh materials made by inhabitants themselves.
• future of this project is far to be guaranted, I've chosen to catch every occasion to
continue to design, develop and communicate around this project through a European
Journalism Master

2. - (in ancient Greece) a public open space used for assemblies and markets (WordReference.com – English Dictionary)
3.- Creative Commons is a nonproft organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure
that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. (offcial defnition on http://creativecommons.org/)

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 6

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

Back Results
• Epinettes TV as been integrated to the general Community Centre framework
• Epinettes TV has met strong interests from different types of partners, espacially social
workers, politicians and fnancial partners
• There is no good audience results for the moment. We tried to fnd why and the main
response is that the project is not yet started on an operational point of view. In the other
hand, Pont de Witry inhabitants are really motivated on how their depraved area image
can be changed and are ready to be involved.
• Epinettes TV have received the Reims Discrimination Fight Festival label
• 2 different local social program contests have asked us to register

Conclusion : « I've got work to do»

There is still a lot of work to do : frst of all, we have to build, identife and promote relevant
evaluation tools ; we have also to convince fnancial and political partners. The main aim is to
reduce distance between aims and results and to continue to justify and clarify our social action
through this social media project.

6 gouvernance ideas to improve this local

social project

Participation of the citizen : put real people at the very center of the
project
In a community centre, decisions are made by a Conseil d'Orientation : inhabitants / ordinary
members are elected to become community centre representatives.

This council votes decisions that become social workers frameworks.

It seems that this could be the best way to consider global and local challenges : it helps
implementing local autorities in a democratic way.

Rule of law
Rules involved in such an organisation can be considerated as an introduction to promote
democracy, connected to the people. Respecting law is a solution to promote values on how
everyone can live in society and everyday people's involvment. A community centre and a project
such as Epinettes TV guarantee more democratic and more opened public institutions.

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 7

 Epinettes TV : how gouvernance can be helpful on a local social programm

Consensus oriented & promoting equity

In the same framework as Conseil d'Orientation, Epinettes TV is based on a Watching Commity
where members are elected to give directions.

Through an associative way of working toghether, this community centre is recognised by its
members to be a place where it is the people who is deciding.

Effciency
This social media project tends to be as well organized as possible to meet good results as.
A warm and professional welcome is always run at this date for the ones how want to be involved
in this project.

Transparency : conquer people trust

The Epinettes TV project is integrated to general community centre project : co-construction,

collaboration promotion and pedagogy are priorities.

Accountability
As we have seen it, Epinettes TV is an occasion to promote a more democratic and opened public
institution.

Epinettes TV is also trying to be as close as possible to principle of subsidiarity : decision is taken

as a very close citizen level, in a legal framework)

One of our slogan is « think global / act local ».

Epinettes TV promotes as well the idea that everyday people have to make informed decisions. To
help them in this way, Epinettes TV aims to evaluate what members say about themselves, what
others say about them, and whether they’re verifed or vouched : that's why a journalistic extension
has been mandatory to met balanced and organized requirements.

Richard CARLIER UE 35 - Gouvernance – Mme MARON 8