who are we ?

We are teachers of kindergarten, primary, secondary, technical and classical, educators, trainers, now retired. We share some common points on education: Any knowledge and skills acquired must be based on the real interests of the learner and the community where they belong.

We have always preferred, at school, cooperation and mutual assistance. This has led us to a critical attitude faced to the French education system and has brought some of us to think collectively to more innovative solutions which could meet our aspirations together with different educational groups such as: GFEN ( French Group for a New Education), ICEM ( Cooperative Institute of Modern School Movement Freinet), GPI ( Institutional Training Group), CEMEA (Training Centre for Active Education Method), AFL (French Association for Reading)…

What do you want ?

The dramatic situation of the education in the Third World (often, a legacy of the colonial period) is a fact which is unanimously acknowledged by the authorities at all level. The proposals made to remedy this situation differ….Nobody has a magic solution, neither we, nor the others….

It is for us, together with people on the ground confronted with this situation, to imagine all possible solutions, to be present in their implementation, and to share all the successes and failures.

We want to make it clear that under no circumstances we intend to substitute teachers and educators themselves (we never take responsibility for a class for example), neither do we substitute Teachers Training Schools or other Training Institutes.

We want to respond to a request strongly expressed by teachers and educators who do not want to be alone faced to the enormity of the tasks, and who want to be able to confront “their experience and their difficulties” to our educational experience.

But when we go to these countries, we also want to enrich ourselves with values and experiences which are unknown or which have been forgotten in our society. The group, with the experience gained there, will participate in education and solidarity to the problems of the Third World.

How ?

To answer the request of various organisations, ministries, educational groups, schools of the Third World, the GREF intervenes in long-term projects: it ensures a follow-up that may be for several years. Each member of the team is committed to a minimum of two to three months on the field within a small teaching team, which requires a permanent working group. Only the expenses of travel and transportation are supported by the association. For the rest, the members of the GREF live on their retirement pensions. The GREF is part of the Comité Laïque pour l’Education au Développement. Educators without Frontiers, we have chosen to be a group of retired educators and teachers within a collective of education associations rather than a group of educators in an association of pensioners.