“The isolation is more and more strong”, laments the president of the association

0

“The isolation is getting stronger”, whether physical or digital, laments the president of Restos du cœur Patrice Douret on Tuesday 23 November on franceinfo as the association launches its 37th winter campaign to collect donations, against a backdrop of worsening precariousness since the start of the health crisis linked to Covid-19.

franceinfo: Do ​​you see on the ground that precariousness has increased in France?

We carried out a study last year via our observatory which shows that 15% of people who are new to Restos du cœur are people who would not have come before the health crisis. What also worries us is a very strong increase in our street activities, all the people who come to meet our teams of marauding or trucks of the heart, and this increase is quite strong since it is 25% in 2 years. Insecurity affects all age categories. There is a large number of young people who represent 50% of the people we welcome, but the worsening of the precarious situation of people we knew before is also marked. We also note a phenomenon that is important, namely the isolation which is increasingly strong, whether physical with people increasingly distant from our systems and from all the systems of solidarity associations but also a digital isolation which is increasingly marked.

Are you going to develop the mobile units of the Restos du cœur to reach out to these isolated people?

We have itinerant trucks, vehicles in which we have food aid, but also volunteers who are trained to meet other support and personal assistance needs. We are going to double the number of these vehicles, which will therefore approach 70. These are trucks which travel through the territories and which go as close as possible to the people received and people in difficulty precisely to avoid them this trip which is sometimes expensive, sometimes is difficult or simply impossible because they do not necessarily have a vehicle. When they have one, you have to buy gasoline and it gets more and more expensive. And then when you are in great difficulty, there is a form of depression. When the difficulties accumulate we stay at home and we do not necessarily have the will to move so we come, we create this social link, we restore self-confidence and that also allows us to be able to support them. We extend our hand to them for a little while, until they can get out of it and then they can join devices that have full activities.

You mentioned digital isolation. Does it only affect the elderly or also the young?

It concerns all age categories. During the health crisis, we saw students who were in difficulty. Digital isolation can also be the absence of hardware or internet network to be able to connect. In France, we have a little more than 200 IT workshops that provided this support. It will be essential to continue their development in order to be able to meet this important need.

“When you do not have the possibility of accessing digital technology, the Internet in particular, it is access to the law or the formalities of the procedures that are impossible.”

Patrice Douret, President of Restos du cœur

to franceinfo

We see people coming to our activity centers who, for lack of being able to register to find a job, training, access to a job or special help, they come to us because in the middle, in class. months, they have a need and they come so that this connection can be facilitated for them.


source site