For Students, a DukeEngage Program in a Small French Town Is a New Experience — but for the Faculty Director, It’s Home

Two years ago, Germain Choffart was trying to think up a DukeEngage program. 

Choffart — a Lecturing Fellow in the Department of Romance Studies and longtime French instructor at Duke — first heard about DukeEngage when a colleague told him it was hiring site coordinators for its summer programs.

As a faculty member with experience directing study abroad programs, Choffart was more than a little overqualified for the job. But he had rotated off directing the Duke in Aix-en-Provence program for Global Education, so he was free that summer, and he was eager to travel and see a new part of the world.

Choffart was hired as a site coordinator for DukeEngage Uganda in Kampala, directed by engineering professor Ann Saterbak. This program teams up engineering students from Duke and Makerere University to design medical prototypes to meet the needs of local healthcare facilities, using only locally available materials.

During his eight weeks in Uganda, Choffart was inspired by how Dr. Saterbak led the program, and he saw that the students were having transformative experiences as well. He started thinking about creating a DukeEngage program of his own.

“It was a thrilling experience, and I came back full of ideas,” he said. “And then I started to brainstorm what could I do if I developed a program.” 

Choffart first considered leading an environmentally-themed DukeEngage program somewhere in southern France. Then it hit him.

“Obviously, the one that’s in front of your nose is always the one you don’t see,” he said with a smile.

Choffart’s hometown, Saint-Avold, is in the Moselle département in northeastern France, a region historically known as Lorraine. 

Formerly, the region was robust with economic activity, attracting waves of immigrants to work in its coal mines and other industries. But following the gradual closure of the mines from 1980–2004, the region saw a decline.

“With the closure of the mines, there has been a strong economic impact on the town,” said Choffart. “And now the city is a little bit in limbo. It’s trying to find a new footing and new economic growth.”

Choffart already knew that the town of Saint-Avold and an array of community organizations were actively working to improve conditions for lower-income people and families in the community.

“My mom was a social worker all her life,” he said.

Choffart called his mother, Carine Choffart. They talked through what a program in Saint-Avold might look like, drawing from her experience in the social field. His vision for the program started to come together.

“I know Saint-Avold well, but I also know its issues,” he recalled thinking.  “I know how to potentially come and have an impact here by bringing DukeEngage students, who I knew would be extremely motivated to meet people, to work hard, and to learn from their experience.”

Many of the students who applied to Choffart’s DukeEngage program in Saint-Avold were interested in having a different experience than a typical study abroad program would offer.

“DukeEngage is a really great way to be able to engage with the community,” said Quindlan Kelleher T’27. “The project aligned a lot with my values of working with the community and helping lower income families, and having an impact there is something that is really important to me.”

“I felt like this was a really good opportunity to get some of that abroad experience and see a different country and experience a different culture, but not only that — like really immerse myself,” said Martin Heintzelman T’26. “Especially in a city that’s not, like a tourist hub in Europe. I mean, it’s not Paris.”

Saint-Avold is definitely not Paris. With just under 15,000 inhabitants and a small town center, the locals started to recognize the students when they were out and about.

“It’s a small enough town where there’s a lot of familiar faces. People know we’re around — we’re in the newspaper and stuff like that,” Heintzelman said.

A regional TV station ran a segment on the DukeEngage students playing basketball at the Mission Locale du Baisin Houiller, and the local newspaper, Le Républicain Lorrain, published seven articles about them during their eight weeks in Saint-Avold.

While many of the stories highlight the novelty of a group of American students coming to town, they also spotlight their work on different projects — of which there were many.

“We’ve been involved in so many different projects — it’s quite unbelievable, everything that we’ve been able to do,” Choffart said.

What follows is a non-exhaustive list of the students’ projects in Saint-Avold: they pitched in at a workshop that restores furniture for low-income families, and another that teaches community members how to create furniture out of pallet wood. They created social media accounts for a local wool workshop that offers community members the training to make artisanal products as well as entrepreneurial skills. Students led activities with local schoolchildren, like soccer games, musical performances, and theater workshops.  

After creating their own designs, students painted and restored public spaces, like the facade of the local cultural arts center and a staircase connecting the local high school to the town’s historical center. At the request of the mayor’s office, they created and designed a guide that encourages residents and business owners in the heart of town to “vegetalize” their homes and store-fronts by adding plants and flower beds, which helps to lower street temperatures and encourage pollinators. 

In addition to these projects, Kelleher said that some of her most valuable experiences came from simply spending time with community members.

“It felt like we’ve had the opportunity to go in a community and just be with them and experience things with them, which has had a lot more impact on how I can connect with them,” she said. “I think that something that I personally want to take away is that there’s so much you can learn from someone by being with them and listening to their stories.”

“I think everyone who has a chance to do something like this, whether it’s here or in the U.S or another country, should really take advantage of it,” Heinztelman said. “We’ve just gotten to meet so many really interesting and cool people, and build relationships that would not occur in everyday life, in terms of across age gaps, or socioeconomic status, or education level.”

The Saint-Avold community embraced the students in turn.

“A lot of people are very surprised that American college students are in their town,” Kelleher said. “But they’ve been incredibly welcoming in every respect…even at the grocery store, we have a cashier that always loves us coming in because we can speak English to her, which is not a very common experience here.”

While Choffart said that this year’s students “have set a high bar” with their hard work and good attitudes, he plans to offer the program again next year, giving another group of students the chance to immerse themselves in a new place, and — like the DukeEngage motto says — “challenge themselves and change their worlds.”

“By working in a DukeEngage program, I feel like students can get so much that they cannot get in the classroom,” Choffart said. “My hope is that at the end of the program, when students go home, they take a little piece of Saint-Avold with them.”

Many thanks to DukeEngage France’s community partners:

• A.S.B.H. (Association d’Action Social du Bassin Houiller)
• Mairie de Saint-Avold
• Mission Locale du Bassin Houiller
• Mission Locale Moselle Centre
• Centre Communal d’Action Sociale de Saint-Avold (C.C.A.S.)
• Lycée Charles Jully
• Lycée Poncelet
• École Pierre Ernst
• Collège Rabelais