The Ivory Foundation has financed an operation in support of the homeless in Paris conducted by the organisation ‘Sans A’. Sans A is an association developed and initiated by young Parisian citizens.
With this support,on the occasion of christmas 2014, “Sans A” was able to get 90 educational games for children in an emergency shelter located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. (This site is supervised by ‘Aurore’ association).
About forty children rushed into the large chapel transformed into a library. On each table they discovered brand new games. In this period of school holidays, they spend most of their time in the recreation center. No real vacation for these families “received as part of the emergency plan but for which no solution was found yet,” says Florence Knittel, educator. Thus, some children have been there since the center opened in January 2013.
Mostly from Western Africa and Eastern Europe, the little residents are almost all in school. Those who are already speaking French are welcomed in local schools, the others in non-French speaking classes.
After half an hour, it’s teatime: cupcakes, biscuits and sweets of all kinds complete the festive atmosphere of the day.
During the same period, the association organized an event for collecting chocolates at the Neuilly-sur-Marne mall. The team managed to collect 210 kg of chocolates in two days.
These chocolates were directly distributed to the homeless during the Christmas patrols along with eighty greeting cards, created by children of the Victor Hugo primary school in Gagny. The forty volunteers have crisscrossed the districts of Gare de Lyon, Bastille, Republic, Saint-Lazare, Richard Lenoir, the Marais, Chatelet, Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est.
Support was also provided by The Ivory Foundation in order to equip the organization for its patrols.