Job integration to serve Ardèche

Consider rural desertification, the dwindling opportunities to make a living from farming, and cases of social exclusion that are further exacerbated by the crisis; consider too the magnificent areas so conducive to the growth of green tourism, and the communities who need service providers to enhance them… Established in Ardèche since 1988, the Tremplin Group is at the centre of such issues. It acts throughout a vast geographic area, ranging from central Ardèche to the north of the department and from Valence to the Hermitage region in the Drôme. It has about thirty full-time helpers who look after 650 employees working through job integration schemes involving specialized businesses and associations.
 
One of those organizations, Tremplin Insertion Chantiers, is an association specialized in job integration through business founded in 1997. It provides help to people at risk (youths in difficulty, the disabled etc.), training them and employing them under government-funded contracts. Its “green brigades” are small groups that consist of five to seven people who have difficulties finding a job. Supervised by a team leader, they travel the region back and forth to take charge of various assignments to clean and maintain nature areas. They clear the sides of paths and roads, cut dead trees, maintain the river banks, improve hiking trails, renovating a staircase here or a dry stone wall there. In 1999, the green brigades employed eight people. By 2005, their number exceeded sixty.
 
A time of guidance, a training course, and a job
The results were convincing: in 2008, 60% of the hundred or so people who received support during the year have obtained a standard job or received extra training. The highly attentive follow-up on the part of association employees and the close partnerships that exist with all local social organizations play a large part in this success. In 2010, Tremplin Insertion Chantiers set up an eighth “green brigade” with eight new government-funded contracts in order to satisfy a growing demand, especially around the municipalities of Annonay and Privas. On that occasion, the Veolia Foundation reiterated the support it had granted for the first time in 2006. After facilitating the purchase of a vehicle to optimize the work performed by the teams, the Foundation took part in bolstering the support staff (supervisors, job integration counsellors, administrative positions). The support it provided made it possible to fund part of the equipment needed by this additional brigade: a 9-seater vehicle, brush cutters and chainsaws, as well as a chipper shredder that can handle entire tree trunks and turn them into compost.