30 Aug 2024 #Connexion d’Urgence : Le Rocher at a crossroads

The announcement of a nationwide lockdown by the government on March 17 brought the country’s economic activity to a halt. For associations, stopping was not an option. It would condemn a large portion of their beneficiaries and deprive them of their last lifeline. Here’s a look at Rocher.

Rocher : live, grow, build

Rocher is one of those associations for which stopping was unthinkable. In their 9 branches spread across the territory, their volunteers work directly in the neighborhoods. They even move in with their families to establish a presence.

The primary goal? To create connections, to ensure people meet each other. This is achieved through various activities such as educational support for younger children, street events, vacation camps, night tours to engage with young people, and more.

For Jean-François Morin, Director of Fundraising and Social, Civic, and Professional Integration at Rocher: “Neighborhood residents are people who no longer go to the CAF (Family Allowances Fund) or local missions because they are exhausted from answering questions. Because there are questions that are disturbing. There are questions they don’t have answers to. Because there are papers they don’t have, because they cannot read. Because they are rarely welcomed as individuals. We don’t welcome a person by asking for their papers, their age, and their family quotient. [The challenge] is to restore the dignity to people who no longer feel dignified. To make them feel loved and lovable.”

To achieve this, Rocher has established three main intervention areas. The first is to live with, to be present for the neighborhood residents without expecting anything in return.

The second is to grow with them, because it’s not enough to be there; it’s also important to reach out to the residents, extend a hand, and build connections.

And ultimately, to build with them, to help residents achieve social, civic, and professional integration.

During the lockdown : ROCHER maintains the connection, at all costs

For many neighborhood residents, the lockdown marked a shift from precariousness to extreme poverty. With the sudden halt of economic activity, many businesses did not renew their temporary or short-term contracts, on which these vulnerable families depended.

In response to this new urgency, new partnerships were formed with organizations specializing in food distribution to ensure the delivery of packages, particularly those provided by the town hall.

In the northern neighborhoods of Bondy, one of Rocher’s branches also undertook to ensure educational continuity. For many families, the lack of a computer, internet connection, and language barriers could have condemned the younger ones to drop out of school. It’s difficult to continue learning when all you have is a mobile phone.

In just a few days, Rocher set up a mentoring system to support the most vulnerable children. Each day in Bondy, 70 children were individually assisted by a volunteer for an hour, remotely. Everything was done to prevent the fragile link to school from breaking.

To support this educational continuity, 95 children and families benefited from the #EmergencyConnection operation led by Break Poverty, Emmaüs Connect, and the Mentoring Collective, receiving personal computers and internet connections.

Jean-François Morin emphasizes: “Thanks to Break Poverty, we’ve bridged the digital divide for 95 families. It’s huge!” When a child receives a computer, the whole family benefits: “We have a mother who was able to update her CV thanks to the computer sent to her child.”

Without these computers and the educational continuity activities carried out by Rocher, especially in Bondy, these young people would likely have dropped out of school with no possibility of return. Mayeul Coutensais, Head of the Bondy branch, confirms: “Dropping out in the city is worse than elsewhere. It’s often permanent.” For Jean-François Morin, this reflects a real inequality: “There are as many geniuses in Bondy as in Versailles.”

And now ?

In the coming weeks, home visits will intensify across all Rocher branches, and educational continuity activities will continue throughout the summer to catch up on the delays accumulated during the lockdown. For residents of the northern neighborhoods, the Bondy branch is also organizing vacation camps in July around Chambord so that families do not spend their holidays in the city.