In 2024, the town of Vaulx-en-Velin renewed its partnership with Cartooning for Peace as part of the Regional Plan to Combat Racism, Anti-Semitism and Discrimination. For the sixth consecutive year, the actions implemented have helped young people develop their critical thinking skills and learn to live together through press cartoons (in school and extracurricular settings).
A training day on teaching through press cartoons, aimed at education professionals (teachers and facilitators), was organised in December 2024.
The young people were then able to visit an educational exhibition, ‘Draw me Gender Equality’ or ‘All Migrants!’, accompanied by their educators.
Over the following months, five cartoonists worked alongside a member of the Cartooning for Peace educational team to run a total of 14 workshops (debates or practical cartoon drawing sessions) in five secondary schools, two leisure centres and the local youth employment agency.
These meetings enabled the young people to discuss the theme of the exhibition, to explore or discover the major issues surrounding freedom of expression, to learn about the profession of press cartoonist, and, for the young people from the leisure centres, to try their hand at press cartooning.
This project concluded with a celebratory drink on Thursday, 15 May 2025, during a feedback session organised at the Aimé Césaire secondary school in Vaulx-en-Velin, attended by the young people and their families.
Visitors were able to view the cartoons created by the young people during the workshops, as well as the exhibition ‘Draw me Gender Equality’, in the courtyard of the establishment.
This convivial event was opened by speeches from Myriam Mostefaoui (Deputy Mayor for Community Life, Gender Equality and the Plan to Combat Racism, Anti-Semitism and Discrimination) and Valérie Nicaise Oudart (Principal of Aimé Césaire Middle School and Head of the Vaulx-en-Velin Educational City), in the presence of Kaoutar Dahoum (Deputy Mayor in charge of Education and Early Childhood).
Anne Lejeune, head of educational projects at Cartooning for Peace, then highlighted the benefits of this long-standing partnership between the municipality of Vaulx-en-Velin and the association, and introduced the press cartoonist MMTK, who created a live cartoon on the theme of gender equality.
