Actif Azur: Getting back to work by recycling computers

Integration means training. To this end, Actif Azur employs staff on economic integration contracts at every stage in the process under the close supervision of a manager.
With assistance from the Antibes town hall, the association has set up an enterprise d'insertion (social integration company) called Actif Azur SA which employs and trains the socially excluded in the framework of economic integration contracts (temporary contracts with special status). After working at Actif Azur, employees can then go on to find employment with companies which assemble hardware or offer maintenance/technical support.
Actif Azur operates premises of 300 m2 in the Trois Moulins industrial estate in Antibes, adjacent to the Sophia Antipolis technology park. The company is financially self-sufficient: members of the association run it on a voluntary basis, and costs are covered by the income generated through the sale of recycled and renovated hardware or provision of related services (installation, maintenance and networking). Any profit is ploughed back in to create additional jobs.

Two new integration contracts

In 2004, buoyed by the success of its initiative, the association was keen to intensify and broaden its activities, and find new outlets for its trainees. With this in view, it offered its services to the schools and colleges of the area, and prospected private individuals, offering to dispense training in the basics of microcomputers. Two new integration contracts were thereby created.
To pursue its various developments in an appropriate setting, Actif Azur needed specific installations (partitioning, suspended ceiling, lighting, heating/air conditioning, telephone and IT network, appropriate furniture). The Veolia Foundation grant enabled it to complete this indispensable project and to boost the volume of hardware recycled.