This was a long, but really exciting day in Paris. The programme was divided into three parts: reception of the Ministry for Youth and Active Solidarity, presentation and visit of the projects from Unis-Cité and Concordia and a trip on the bateau-mouche on the River Seine.

We started at 08:50 in the morning to go to the ministry where it was presented to us. We were informed about the structures and possibilities concerning youth work in France, the role of voluntary work now and in the future, how the ministry gives young people opportunities to choose and to find out what they want to do. One of their aims is to improve the understanding in society that youths play a very important role in our country. That is why they finance a lot of projects concerning living, working and studying in cooperation with many associations.

We found out that the ministry’s work is very different to what you have in China. There you only find volunteer organizations, but these have the same aims as the ones in France. After the talk, some students asked questions about what is done concretely for youth development and what they will do in the future, how they inform pupils about their projects and how they make them aware of what the offer. Another important subject was the cooperation between France and other countries in the field of voluntary work. Especially with Germany, there is a good exchange of information. For example, there are regular meetings every six months to coordinate common activities.

Afterwards, our group was divided into two parts. One group went to the project Concordia, where some volunteers work in an old train station to make a memorial. The station is of special importance because during the Second World Warn 20 000 Jews were transported from Auschwitz from there.

The rest of the group visited the organization Unis-Cité, which is a big social association in France that realizes and finances many projects in 24 French cities. We were especially talking about one project where volunteers go to families to teach them how to live more ecologically and how to reduce the costs for water, nutrition and electricity. The told them which products and fruits they should eat in which season. In another project, volunteers spend time with elderly people who are lonely and do not have the possibility to get out of their house, for example to go swimming to the sea. We also had the possibility to talk to one of the former volunteers who told us about her projects and her experiences.

Then we visited Montmarte and Sacre Coeur, where we could take many photos and we had a great view over the whole city of Paris. In the evening we met again with the whole group to have a big dinner in a typical French restaurant called Flams. Afterwards, we took the bus to the place where our boat trip in the bateau-mouche on the Seine started (after an extraordinary parking of our bus driver). From the boat we could see sights and buildings like Notre Dame, the Opera and the Eiffel Tower. After a nice bus journey home with singing Chinese songs we fell into our beds very tired.