The LaSalle community is mobilizing to relaunch the “orange brigade”, a team of volunteers who knocked on more than 20,000 doors this summer to encourage citizens who are still hesitant to go to vaccination sites. The borough includes the bottom of the class on the entire island of Montreal, the neighborhood of LaSalle Heights, where only 61% of the approximately 1,500 inhabitants are adequately vaccinated, a difference of more than 20% with the average for the metropolis.
“We feel the urgency,” says the director of Loisirs Laurendeau-Dunton, Sylvain Pilote. His organization piloted the orange brigade, whose twenty volunteers roamed the streets of the south-west of the city last summer.
But the fluorescent bib has been put away since October. With the closure of the COVID Quebec Consortium, an initiative that funded 26 action plans supported by the Red Cross across Montreal, the coffers are dry.
Still, the need is too great to wait for revenue to fall from the sky. Residents of the neighborhood write to him, worried about the Omicron wave and the return to class. “We invited community organizers who got involved directly or indirectly with us this summer to remobilize volunteers,” explains Sylvain Pilote.
On Monday, teachers from Cavelier-De LaSalle secondary school demonstrated “to denounce the conditions of this new school year”, in particular the fact that the sanitary measures “have been considerably reduced” and that “nothing has been settled for ventilation writes the West Montreal Education Union on Facebook.
The data confirms fears: as of January 16, only 20.9% of children aged 5 to 11 have received a first dose of the anti-COVID vaccine in LaSalle Heights, a rate that pales in comparison to the few 40 to 60% of surrounding neighborhoods.
This is not, however, for lack of effort; the Orange Brigade visited the area seven times. “We had a crier truck that circulated in the streets to disseminate information in eight languages. We also plastered the neighborhood with posters in French and English. We also went door to door and we had in our pockets, like a gadget inspector, posters in all languages to tell them where and when they could get vaccinated,” recalls Sylvain Pilote.
“It is certain that LaSalle Heights is one of the sectors where it was the most difficult, admits Marie-Florente Démosthène, coordinator of public health activities at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. But the coverage that we are currently seeing is the result of the efforts that we have made to seek out almost one by one each of the citizens. »
“A microcosm of several Montreal realities”
The district sees a new influx of very diverse arrivals every year, according to Hélène David, provincial deputy for the riding of Marguerite-Bourgeoys. “In the 1950s, immigration was typically Italian and it was quite favored. But in Lasalle Heights, for some time now, I’ve been helping families arriving in Montreal who didn’t have winter clothes, who didn’t know what to expect, who lived in basements waiting to find their apartment,” says the elected Liberal.
LaSalle Heights is a microcosm of several Montreal realities. The difference compared to the rest of my riding is obviously linguistic, but there is also more immigration and more deprivation, more vulnerability
This is also the conclusion reached by Sylvain Pilote while familiarizing himself with the inhabitants of the district. “They come from everywhere, they are refugees, new arrivals looking for a place to live and often they go to join their community which is there. That’s why the Heights sector is very distinct from the rest of LaSalle,” he says.
This is also the reason why the inhabitants of this district are more difficult to convince; there is of course the language barrier, but also mistrust of government directives. “Some were not really inclined to open the door, notes the one who led the team. All of a sudden, the television turns off, no one moves in the apartment because they think we are there to send them back to their country. »
Their sources of information can also diverge from traditional media such as Radio-Canada or TVA, adds Hélène David. Since they often get information in their own language, on the Internet or on social networks, they are more at risk of facing fake news.
For example, after hearing several citizens mention the myth that the vaccine can make women sterile, the CIUSSS set up virtual meetings with a female doctor, who was able to answer their questions using an interpreter.
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At the idea that this “village of Gauls” is populated by anti-vaccines, Marie-Florente Démosthène retorts that the non-vaccinated people she has met live with a lot of anxiety. “Just the fact of going to the vaccination sites, it takes all their little change,” she illustrates.
The key to catching up, according to the head of the CIUSSS, is to listen to the concerns of the population, to take them seriously, to make them feel that we are trying to offer answers and not to convince them. But without the orange brigades, the task looks difficult; how to exchange without face-to-face?
“If we hadn’t been there, there are plenty of people who wouldn’t have been vaccinated,” laments Sylvain Pilote. It’s all well and good investing millions of dollars in ads that air on television and radio, but what it takes are people on the ground. »