Approches Cultures & Territoires (ACT)

National Network
France
Address

98 rue de l'Évêché
13002 Marseille
France

Telephone
04 91 63 59 88
E-Mail
act@approches.fr
E-Mail (2)
direction@approches.fr
E-Mail (4)
ryme.sadik@approches.fr
Organisation Type
Non-Governmental Organization
Year of Establishment
2005
Fields of Activity
  1. Heritage
  2. Human rights
  3. International/Cultural relations
  4. Research
  5. Youth and education
General Information
ACT is a non-profit organisation based in Marseille, France, and headed by a conseil d’administration of 10 volunteers. It currently employs a staff of 7 people with a budget of about €300,000.  ACT is mainly funded by grants from national and local governments and the European Union. Between 10 and 15 % of the budget is from our professional trainings offer. ACT provides tools, documentation, resources, and expertise to professionals and the public through documentary websites, conferences, publications, and professional trainings. ACT is the animator-coordinator of a regional network of actors involved in the recognition of the history and the memory of immigration and territories in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. ACT works in partnership with local organisations, social workers, researchers, and local and national institutions including local governments, local state administrations and museums.
Mission and Objectives

Movements of peoples and cultural exchanges have shaped the history of Provence, France and the Mediterranean countries. But in a context of social, economic and political tensions, real or imagined ethnic, religious, regional and/or national characteristics are increasingly becoming arguments for stigmatizing and discriminating practices and policies. Approches Cultures & Territoires rejects this on-going racialization of social relations and works to provide an emancipatory and active approach of the notion of interculturality.
Our mission is to provide professionals, volunteers and the general public with tools and knowledge about cultural diversity, migrations, ethnicity, and discrimination so that they can get the ways of the actual diversity and complexity of society.
ACT works in a professional and principled way to build bridges between scientific, cultural resources and concerned actors in the fields of education, culture, social work, and more largely with all interested citizens.

Main Projects / Activities

ACT conducts four types of activities:
Support and expertise for local actors
- ACT organises a regional network of actors involved in history of immigrations in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
- ACT provides technical and intellectual support to local initiatives
Professional training and lectures
- Since 2014, ACT has proposed a training offer for professionals about secularism and religion, discriminations, local history and diversity, cultural diversity…
- More and more, ACT is asked by actors of the education to give punctual participative lectures about cross-cultural history of Marseille and its region
Conferences and round-table talks
- ACT has organised many conferences programmes with eminent guests about history of immigration, discriminations in education, societal issues, etc.
- Since 2014, ACT has proposed an annual cultural event named “Lire les Méditerranées” which is an invitation to discover the various aspects of research in the fields of human and social sciences and the various aspects of contemporary literature in the southern Mediterranean countries. In 2015, we received 13 writers and researchers from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia around 4 round-tables on the theme of the city in those three countries. 
Publications of resources
- Approches.fr is a documentary website: it lists available publications and local events about cultural diversity, ethnicity and discrimination, etc.
- ACT has published:
• two catalogues of resources about culturally diverse neighbourhood of Marseille (the third is on its way)
• a directory of actors of PACA acting in the field of welcoming immigrants (updated every two years)
• three documentary films about cultural diversity : the first one is giving the floor to theatre artists from migrants backgrounds and the other two met students and parents of students in the popular suburbs of Marseille

How can you contribute to the Network in your country?

Our activities are organised in order to build participatory and democratic management, by using different tools and linking the field expertise (of inhabitants, citizen communities) to scientists’ analysis (sociologist, historian, and others). We are looking forward to share and strengthen this with the ALF Network through the provision of our resources and our professional experience dedicated to the notion of interculturality in the field of history and memory in the one hand and in the field of education in the other hand.

Why do you want to join the ALF Network?

As shown by our project “Lire les Méditerranées”, we are looking forward to develop our action toward the Mediterranean area to contribute to the cross-cultural understanding and increase the social impact of our work by broadening the perceptions.
Plus, the ALF Network is promoting a lot of actions toward the youth, which is a very important point we also want to develop. 
Last but not least, we believe that bringing together diverse organizations is the key to strengthen our common actions and raise this intercultural challenge. Networking is actually the main component of our associative project.

Contact (1) Full Name
Ramzi Tadros
Job Title
Directeur
Head of the organisation
Maryse Fournel, présidente
Contact (2) Full Name
Maryse Fournel
Job Title (2)
Présidente