The Secours populaire adapts the summer holidays of the most disadvantaged to the crisis

After a year turned upside down by the pandemic, the Secours populaire is offering new packages in 2021 for Girondins deprived of vacation. The number of people received in the local structures of the association has jumped by 20% in one year.

“Holidays are a right enshrined in our values,” says Secours populaire girondin. After a “special” year 2020, according to its departmental secretary in charge of campaigns, Alain Haneuse, the charity is launching its 2021 summer holidays for the most disadvantaged. This Saturday, May 29, its program will be presented during a day at the Parc de Mussonville in Bègles, a “novelty” which intends to reassure the public:

“Published in September 2020, the Ipsos-Secours populaire barometer highlighted the obvious: one in three French people was no longer able to go on vacation. These moments are important breaths that provide children with the resources to face the trials of life, ”explains Alain Haneuse.

Poverty: + 20% in Gironde

This barometer drew up a bitter observation: the 1219 € of the minimum wage, for a full-time monthly payment, no longer makes it possible to escape poverty, the threshold of which is 1228 € net for a single person. This subjective poverty line, expressed by the people questioned each year, is now € 165 above the official poverty line (defined by INSEE at 60% of median income).

Already observed in 2017 and 2018, the explosion of precariousness and poverty continues in Gironde. In 2020, the 1,500 volunteers from the 34 local Secours populaire structures received nearly 21,000 people, 41% of whom were minors, against 18,000 in 2019. This represents a 20% increase in the number of beneficiaries.

“Some are very far from the idea of ​​going on vacation” abounds Pauline de Bortoli of the national federation who came to present this 2021 campaign by insisting on a figure: “1 in 3 children deprived of vacation. “

“A true keystone of popular education, holidays offer individuals the opportunity to emancipate themselves, to build themselves up and to open up new perspectives” underlines the Secours populaire which carries out numerous actions to support children, young people, families, seniors, people with disabilities, isolated people and migrant-refugees in departure projects.

Covid version projects

Thanks to various partners, and to cope with the constraints of the health crisis, Secours populaire offers “more outings with fewer people per outing”. Thus, 25 Happiness Days, a concept imagined since the first confinement, are scheduled, against 18 last year.

“We have partnerships with the Opéra national de Bordeaux, the Bassins de lumière, the Frac Aquitaine, to increase the number of cultural proposals. But also with the Bordeaux stadium and Drop de Béton for sporting proposals. All are aimed at groups ranging from 10 to 50 people, ”explains Pauline de Bortoli.

No more “massive outings” (750 people for the Day of the Forgotten of the Holidays in 2020). This new concept based on a more developed partnership could be adopted definitively as a “positive legacy of the Covid”. 9 days at the beach, 8 in the middle of nature, 8 to discover the Bordeaux heritage, 8 sports, 5 of artistic practice, 9 of artistic discovery, and a day to reunite families, are announced. Just like the traditional offers of financial aid for stays and summer camps, less popular in 2021 “or for fear of the virus or for the remaining expenses that families would have difficulty supporting”.

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