Associative landscape around the Animation Formation and Free Education (AFFE)

We, the Animation Formation and Free Education (AFFE), aren't alone. We are part of the Information Media Education (IME) associations such as Internet Sans Crainte's association, the Canopé's Network, the institutation named Centre de Liaison d'Éducation aux Médias de l'Information (CLÉMI). We have already told you a lot about this network of associations.

If we take a larger view, we have all the associations of popular education, a field that we claim. The associations of popular education are present in the deepest part of the territories and for all the wide educational domains (sports animations, artistic practices, social work, material help to the vulnerable people, medico-social sector, religious grouping). Even if some of them are historical, others are small, they are all part of this movement of popular education, transversal to the whole associative sector. The National Committee of Youth and Popular Education Associations (CNAJEP), the National Institute of Youth and Popular Education (INJEP), the Associative Movement and the Regional Directorate of Youth and Social Cohesion (DRJCS) support them, list them and publish research on the associative sector. The best known are:

-Action Contre la Faim;

-Animafac;

-Babbel International;

-Centre d'Entrainement aux Méthodes d'Éducation Active (CEMÉA);

-Coexister France;

-Enfance et Musique;

-Fédération Léo Lagrange;

-Jeunesse en Plein Air;

-Les Enfoirés;

-Mouvement ATD Quart-Monde;

-Parlement Libre des Jeunes;

-Sidaction;

-Union Française des Centres de Vacances (UFCV);

-Vaincre la Mucovisidose;

-Zone d'Expression Prioritaire (ZEP).

There are so many associations in the agglomeration of Tours that we will not be able to name them all. Only in Tours, there are 5037 associations listed in 2021. These are the figures of Recherches et Solidarités in 2021.

Proportionally, in the region, slightly fewer associations are created in the friendly, education and health sectors, and slightly more in the sports, social and economic sectors. In the region, there are between 50000 and 55000 active associations. 24% of French people are volunteers in one or more associations and among them, 43% have a regular volunteer activity (at least once a week). On average, in France, about 90% of the associations function and develop with the only human volunteer resource. Nevertheless, the employment of associations is important: at the national level, it concerns, in 2020, more than 152700 establishments and 1775600 employees (9,2% of the private sector). Here is a precise table of the sectors of activity according to the National Directory of Associations (RNA).

The associative dynamic is developing all over the world, especially in France and the United States since 2010. We have the impression that associations develop more when there is a crisis of meaning. They are there to alleviate social problems because otherwise they would be worse, which proves that they are therefore essential to defend the causes that are close to our hearts..