Even though they are going through a very difficult period due to Covid-19, young people continue to show solidarity.

School support and requests for civic services to help the elderly and isolated have increased significantly.

Young people are turning to concrete actions and are also getting involved politically through petitions.

DECRYPTION

The Covid-19 health crisis is hitting the young generation hard.

Few prospects on the job market, disrupted student life, isolation, young people face a deterioration in their living conditions.

But they have not for all that given up on their commitments, quite the contrary.

They need to feel useful and their investment is taking new forms.

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50% more volunteers in school support associations

School support, for example, has exploded in recent months, with 50% more volunteers since the start of the crisis in associations.

A colossal increase.

Amélie, 22, is one of these young volunteers.

Two hours a week, she teaches a 10-year-old boy in CM2 whose parents do not speak French well.

She takes time to make him do his homework and this moment does him a lot of good: "inevitably, we feel more useful. If I were in his place, I would appreciate that we do that for me. also structuring for us because we say to ourselves: 'Such day I have that', at least it's nice, it fixes a bit of a framework in a period where we lose the sense of time, the sense of seeing people ", she confides to Europe 1.

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An experience useful to others

According to a survey conducted by the Association of the Student Foundation for the City among these young people who give lessons, 70% of them assure that this commitment allows them to better get through this uncertain period marked by the Covid. 

Living an experience that makes sense while being useful to others is also what drives many young people engaged in civic service, a contract of six to 12 months, and 24 hours a week with a mission of interest general.

Each year there are 145,000 places.

Last July, as part of the recovery plan, Emmanuel Macron announced 100,000 additional places.

"We see their need to have us on a daily basis"

As part of this civic service, more and more young people are getting involved in helping the elderly, such as Camille, 22, who visits isolated people over the age of 65 at home.

"We play with them, we cook, we help them with their difficulties on the internet. We really see their need to have us on a daily basis. It's super important, we feel really super useful," says the young woman. who lives in Hazebrouck, in the North.

According to figures from Unis-Cité, the association which finds drop-off points for young people in civic service, there are currently three requests for a position, proof that young people want to help their elders. 

In 2020, 47% of young people defended a cause on the internet

The commitment of young people turns to concrete actions, but there is also a political commitment, more symbolic, through a large number of petitions.

Admittedly, young people shun the ballot box, but 47% of them signed a petition or defended a cause on the internet in 2020, according to the barometer of the Directorate of Youth, or 11 points more than five years ago. 

The themes of engagement are varied: sexism, poverty, inequalities or even the environment.

For example, the famous "Affair of the Century" particularly mobilized young people.

Initially, it was a petition that collected more than two million signatures and ended last week with a condemnation of the state for climate inaction.

A quarter of the signatories of the "Affair of the Century" are under 25 years old.

Here too, the involvement of young people is guided by two drivers: an even greater quest for meaning during this health crisis, and the feeling of having immediate results, far removed from the political commitments which they consider very impractical.