Five workforce development projects for environmental conservation in a rural area

ACI Développement is an apolitical secular nonprofit outreach association, active in the Orne district for nearly 20 years. Its goal is to enable and support the development of solidarity and civicmindedness in all its forms. In particular, it proposes the reception and counseling of persons who have dropped out of mainstream society to obtain employee status on subsidized contracts, through its back to-work workshops (ACI). The activities concern the environment, the building trades and finishing work, cleanup and housekeeping, garage sales and social house moving. Other activities, such as sewing workshops, truck farming, secondhand goods dealing, laundry, ironing, and the production of decorative objects are carried out in several workshops.

In 2009, 280 employees benefited from a back-to-work contract

The transversality of the projects proposed by the association enables it to pool the human and material resources to respond to applications throughout the district.

The ACI Développement project for 2010 aims to maintain and expand the activity of the workforce development projects in the five branches of the district located in the rural communes of L'Aigle, Mortagne-au-Perche, Vimoutiers, Arentan and Gacé, where people are working on upgrading the river banks and waterways, open spaces and trail marking. It also covers the purchase of another three used utility vehicles to contend with the growing number of contractualized jobs, the upgrading of existing premises to standard, and the construction of a new building for dealing in secondhand goods.

The resumption of truck farming with the purchase of three hoop houses will help create another four to five jobs, with supervision provided by the technical staff of the multiservices workshop and of the environmental conservation project. The sale of garden produce at an affordable price will enable the employees and the most destitute inhabitants to balance their food intake better.

Throughout the 2010 project of ACI Développement, the Veolia Foundation has been approached for the financing of the mechanical equipment to maintain the open spaces required for the completion of the environmental workshops (mowers, grass cutters, chain saws) which has to be replaced every four to five years.