MGEN is pleased to renew its partnership with the Mucem for the next five years, to support the overhaul of the museum’s mediation spaces for young audiences. A fun mediation route designed around the concept of an archipelago sprinkled with islands, each of which represents a different mediation space, will allow children and their chaperones (whether teachers and/or family members) to discover the objects and cities of the Mediterranean, opening them up to other horizons, other histories and other cultures. The educational tools that will be offered to the kids – digital technologies and multidisciplinary activities – are intended to encourage amusement but also free expression and learning. With this new mediation mechanism, which will be adapted to every age range, both the Mucem and MGEN hope to double visits from families and school groups and to enable those visitors to enrich their thinking and their knowledge, discover other cultures and develop listening skills and respect for others.

This partnership is placed under the banner of “Culture accessible to all” because the question of education, culture, and its assimilation by the largest, most varied audience possible has been at the heart of our mutual insurance company since its creation.

70th anniversary in 2017

Since its creation 70 years ago, MGEN has continued to fight:
-    Against obscurantism and individualism;
-    For solidarity;
-    To promote culture, education and social awareness by promoting original initiatives in those domains, namely in connection with the scholastic environment, because artistic and cultural education is crucial to the basic upbringing of future citizens, fostering the development of critical thinking in the younger generations and helping to consolidate the notion of living together.
Throughout the 2016/2017 year, we celebrated our 70th anniversary around the country by holding various events and discussions of our vision for the future. More specifically, we spent a lot of time on questions relating to education, culture and youth because those sectors, which have been significantly affected by the continuous ascent of new technologies, are also at the very heart of living together, societal cohesion and equal opportunities.

An active member of the educational community

As an active member of the educational community, inspiring young adults and giving them the means of discovering the full wealth and diversity of cultures and civilizations around the world is of vital importance to us. In fact, we consider culture to be a fundamental right that, in a society where individualism attempts to trump the collective interest, is capable of uniting people and should be shared, fostering relationships with others, and passed on. We believe that culture embodies the power of we, a “we” that is both collective and supportive.

This is why the MGEN Group, which protects 4 million people including public officials from the worlds of education and culture (but also youth, sports and the environment), is a natural partner of associations and organizations working to open all types of audiences up to culture and to the emergence of civic debates based on artistic creation, especially in schools.

Encouraging cultural accessibility actions

After considering questions of the most relevant, optimal methods for receiving more diverse audiences at cultural institutions, where certain social categories remain under-represented, MGEN decided from its earliest days to encourage the popularization actions initiated by cultural institutions.

To achieve this, the insurance company for education, youth and culture opted to get involved in and support various cultural events and programmes nationwide in order to have a presence all over, particularly in areas that are remote or far-removed from the cultural offering, and in that way to make sure not to overlook anyone. MGEN has also decided to promote projects and systems in which schools have a real role to play.

This has included for example collaborations with other major national museums like the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles, but also Cartooning for Peace, of which MGEN is a founding partner, A Date with History in Blois, the High School Speeches for the Defence Competition organized by the Caen Memorial Museum, and Saint-Malo’s international book and film, Etonnants Voyageurs. In January 2017, MGEN became an official partner of the International Comics Festival in Angoulême, more specifically its School Comics Competition.

By partnering with the Mucem, MGEN is continuing 70 years of commitment to making culture widely accessible and is wagering on culture for all as a precondition for the emancipation of individuals.