The development of the activities of a training and resource centre first has to go through ... the kitchen!

A.I.M.E. (Agir, Innover, Mobiliser, Essaimer), created in 1995, is an organization specialized in individualized training and social accompaniment of persons - youths and adults - who are unemployed and face difficulties in rejoining mainstream society.
After more than 10 years of action in the Paris region, the association has refocused its activities in the Ardèche district, where it proposes training courses (mobilization around a professional project and pre-skills training) for young jobless persons. Since 2000, it also organizes back-to-work projects in the building trades.

Established in a rural zone with one of the highest unemployment rates of the Rhône-Alpes region, the association has achieved a very good success ratio, while operating in a branch of activity that is unpopular with conventional firms.

Strong demand for bau-building evinced both by local communities and private individuals in Southern Ardèche, has impelled the association to develop workforce development activities and to create a resource centre dedicated to these techniques and to sustainable development with the corresponding training.

Between this activity, the seminars and events organized by the resource centre, it was no longer possible to feed the employees and participants in satisfactory conditions, and this raised an obstacle to the natural growth of the association.

The enlargement of the present kitchen is the aim of a self-construction project run by the back-to-work employees (A.C.I. Bâtiment)

The future kitchen common to the two floors of the centre where the training and reception activities take place, with its appropriate equipment, is designed for the preparation of meals for groups of fifty to a hundred persons. Apart from the organization of larger scale events - A.I.M.E. is also an artists' colony with a room accommodating 80 persons - this transformation will also help accommodate the personnel wishing to acquire cooking skills.

The operations will partly be entrusted to the back-to-work employees as part of a training course to qualify as a mason for old building structures.