• Pas-de-Calais is providing assistance to finance driving licenses for young people.

  • It is granted in exchange for 35 hours of volunteering in associations.

  • The measure is open to 15-25 year olds regardless of means.

Citizen engagement against driving license.

The Pas-de-Calais departmental council has put in place an original aid to encourage young people to get involved in civil society.

In exchange for volunteer hours, they will be granted financial assistance to obtain their driving license.

It is in a way an exchange of good process in which everyone must find their account.

On the one hand, the institution, which intends to open the minds of young people to others.

On the other hand, young people, for whom the driving license is a door to autonomy that is often inaccessible.

Hence the idea of ​​combining these two expectations in the “citizen permit” device.

This is a flat-rate aid of 400 euros granted to all the young inhabitants of Pas-de-Calais who engage in an action with the numerous associations of the department.

"It works with all associations, provided there is a citizen interest," explains Emmanuelle Leveugle, departmental advisor in charge of the Environment.

For all young people without means test

A particularly wide field to explore, which ranges from traditional charitable organizations, such as the Red Cross or the Secours populaire, to the municipal badminton club for supervising children. The contract provides for 35 volunteer hours to obtain the assistance, spread over a maximum of three months. "For the ten young people who participate in the program within the Eden 62 association, this takes place over a full week", continues the advisor. There, it is about raising awareness of nature and the environment, a theme "that young people have difficulty understanding", deplores Emmanuelle Leveugle. Eden 62 therefore offers them hours of theory, but above all to get their hands dirty through nature projects.

In 2021, the department devoted 800,000 euros for this operation, making it possible to finance 2,000 “citizen's permits”.

The demand is so great that the budget was exhausted in just six months.

This success can be explained in particular by the fact that aid is accessible to all young people aged 15 to 25, regardless of means.

"It is a political will to open up to everyone, because raising awareness of commitment is not a question of means", insists Emmanuelle Leveugle.

The operation will be renewed in 2022 with an enlarged budget.

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  • Aid

  • Volunteering

  • Youth

  • Driver's license