A wonderful initiative and good news for young students, some of whom expressed their interest by attending the brief ceremony that took place under the approving and attentive eyes of Madame Dominique Estrosi Sassone, Deputy Mayor and head of city policy, and Madame Agnรจs Rampal, Deputy for University Relations and Higher Education. Both were very interested in any initiative promoting the best possible integration of young people into the academic and university environment as well as into the professional world and businesses.
The event also offered, as a prelude to the official part, a symposium on the theme: “Diversity in All its Forms”, led by Bรฉatrice Bretegnier, Director of Human Resources at Konรฉ, the Finnish multinational whose national headquarters in France is located in Nice, and Khales Toumi, project manager for the fight against discrimination in the PACA region, the public body responsible for this crucial topic. Anne Witte, professor at Edhec and head of the Culture & Society stream, coordinated the speeches from the speakers and questions from the audience.
Bรฉatrice Bretegnier presented an interesting activity program developed at Nokia, where disability is seen as an asset rather than an obstacle in integration. Khales Toumi, on the other hand, emphasized the need to communicate successes, which are predominant compared to negative cases, to foster a positive dynamic, and also reported on the mentoring program that allows ‘volunteer’ seniors to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in academic and professional settings.
Finally, everyone agreed that the success of integration policies requires a range of programs like the one resulting from this Edhec/UPE06 agreement, which can be classified among the “best practices.”
