Run to Paris 2024 wins innovation award

After receiving the first academic award of the year of the Olympic movement from the Board of Education, the National Education department of the Northern Islands won the prize of innovation from the Academy of Guadeloupe, once again due to the Run to Paris 2024 project.

During the 7th edition of Academic Innovation Day, which took place on Wednesday May 3rd, at the Guenette middle school (Moule), Frédéric Bablon, DAASEN from the Academy of Guadeloupe, presented this award, under the applause of the Rector of the Academy, Camille Galap, and Jean-Luc Elice, the project manager for the whole Department of Education of the Northern Islands.

The Run to Paris 2024 project, with the partnership of sports associations USEP Northern Islands and UNSS Saint-Martin has been valued in the category: “Partnerships to enhance student success”.

“It was a participatory challenge” explained Jean-Luc Elice, the President of the USEP during a press conference on Tuesday May 10th. Between November 2016 to March 2017, 3,000 students from kindergarten to high school in the public institutions of the Northern Islands have accumulated 6,993 kilometers in swimming, running, sailing, biking, kayaking, hiking, etc. Their goal was to reach 6,726 kilometers to virtually reach Paris, candidate to host the 2024 Olympics. “The USEP and UNSS came together to rack up those kilometers” he says.

In addition to using their physical and sporting skills, as well as their team spirit, this challenge also had an educational interest because it enabled them to work math in solving problems to calculate distances, geography (place Saint-Martin and Paris) and learn to communicate across the world through the internet. On arrival, they indeed exchanged with a class in the Paris region and their sponsor, the Olympic fencing runner-up Jean-Paul Tony-Helissey. “The most important is that these projects inspire the children to come to school” comments the primary grade inspector Dominique Boyer. “One of the most important aspects of our job is that with enjoyment and desire we can teach anything. Run to Paris gave them the taste of the effort, overcome self-esteem and commitment” adds Jean-Luc Elice.

25 projects have been selected to be presented on the stands. The Northern Islands have presented 4 projects:

 - “At the Steel Pan school” elementary school project Hervé Williams, aiming to observe the impact of learning of the steel pan, heritage instrument, on a cohort of students from 1st to 5th grades.

- “Live reading and contemporary dance at the service of perseverance” project involving the 8th graders of the collège Mont des accords carried out by Mrs. Noreskal, teacher in mathematics, and Mrs. Dulorme, school teacher.

- Challenge of the tables (district of the Northern Islands): make learning multiplication tables a game

RUN TO PARIS 2024 numbers...

- Students of the Northern Islands have achieved 6,993 km

- A participation of about 3,000 students

- 20 schools involved (4 kindergartens, 10 primary schools, 5 middle schools, 1 high school, 6 ULIS “Units for School Inclusion” schools, 1 ULIS middle school) 

- 150 children of the extracurricular involved (PEDT)

- UNSS Saint-Martin, USEP Northern Islands, the CNOSF, the Paris 2024 Committee and the Collectivités of Saint-Barthelemy and Saint-Martin