Our main activity is a training course: learning to imagine, draw and build a video game, with artificial intelligence as a tool. You learn by doing, with your hands and with other people. And what you have learned is written down on an honest piece of paper, signed by someone who saw you do it. It takes place in two neighbourhoods: Burel, in Marseille, and Carami, in Brignoles.
The English doctor Donald Winnicott showed it: it is by playing that we dare to try, get it wrong, start again, and become creative. When the fear of getting it wrong blocks everything, learning stops; when that block gives way, everything starts again. Here, every game activity is a brick: day after day, you lay your foundations, then build your professional house.
This is the big building site, the one that lasts. First you learn to draw the game on paper (its plan, like the plan of a house), then to build it piece by piece. Artificial intelligence is the tool, like the machine in the workshop: the person is the one who decides. Along the way, you learn to write, to organise, to decide and to work as a team.
A place where you can come and ask a question about the law (a contract, a dispute, a formality), about a notary (an inheritance, a home, a gift) or about safety, at work or at home. We do not replace the lawyer or the notary: we help you understand the question, prepare your papers and knock on the right door, without getting the wrong address.
We also open rooms, where everyone takes part, as much as they can, in the life of the place. They are for three kinds of people: artists who stay for a long time, young workers on assignment for a few weeks, and people accompanying a relative in hospital, for a few nights. Three lengths of stay, three doors: a reminder of how we do things.
Nobody watches someone else build the game: everyone rolls up their sleeves, in a small group. You learn the way you learn to ride a bike: not from a book, but by pedalling.
A video game professional, a trainer or the head of an association watches what you do. Then they write it down in black and white: "I saw this person do this, on this day." And they sign. It is not a school mark, it is a witness.
With these signed papers in hand, you can knock on a door: a job, a training course, and later a diploma. You arrive with proof, not only with words.
The signed papers add up and become a file. Very often, this file makes it possible to go back to school: take a certification, have what you already know how to do recognised (in France this is called VAE, validation of experience), enter a course you would never have dared to apply for. It is not only for the young: you can start again at any age.
Nobody is asked to choose a trade on paper. The first workshops take the form of a game: you try, and you see very quickly whether you like it. Once that is clear, the association helps you choose what comes next, step by step: which trade, which course, which door. This is what we call our guidance engineering: real guide work, prepared in advance, so that everyone finds their way. Each workshop is a brick: the guidance team looks at which ones are laid, and helps choose the next one.
Digital tools and artificial intelligence change very fast, and new ones keep appearing. Knowing how to use them, today, is what lets you find your place, at work and in everyday life. That is why the training is done with these tools, not beside them.
This is the workshop that lasts over time, where the whole training course takes place. You come back, you practise, you make progress, and the signed papers pile up, like the pages of a notebook you are filling in. It is made to live with the neighbourhood, not beside it.
This is the first trial, on a small scale, like tasting the soup before serving everyone. A small group, results you can count, to check that the method really works before going further.