Exploring French socents during ‘Le Tour des Stades’
This week April ’15 Fellow Andy Smith tells us about his 1,750 mile cycling adventure
In February I blogged about my magical Merseyside tour of socent streets which was preparation for a much bigger cycle tour after my On Purpose year finished at Easter. Well now I’m back from a fantastic six weeks in France with my girlfriend Annie spent exploring the stadiums and social enterprises in each Euro2016 host city, and I’m proud to say that we’ve been awarded June’s Doer of the Month by Do Nation thanks to friends and family supporting our cycling efforts by making a total of 122 sustainability pledges, saving as much carbon as emitted by driving twice around the world!
I must admit that the plan “to visit, understand and promote social enterprises” was more difficult than I’d optimistically hoped, but then again that’s not really surprising since our spare time when not cycling, checking the route, finding places to stay, chatting with our local hosts, eating, sleeping, sightseeing and visiting the stadiums was very limited! However, in most cities we did at least manage to stop outside a socent or two… So let me highlight some of my best discoveries during #BikeSocialTdSfor you…
Stop 1: Lille
La Sauvegarde du Nord -> 1,500 staff offering services to safeguard isolated people
Enercoop Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie -> a 100% renewable energy supplier
Stop 3: Paris
Les Grands Voisins (The Great Neighbours) -> in the old hospital Saint Vincent de Paul, the site is now used to accommodate needy people, host associations and social enterprises, encourage the presence of artisans and creators, sharing tools and work areas, create a public park of a new kind, with educational, cultural and sports elements, all open to residents, local people and tourists!
Les Grands Voisins is also now home to On Purpose Paris -> here I am at post-Friday training drinks with some of the current Associates!
Generation Plume, an organisation who produce environmentally friendly reusable nappies . Here I am outside their HQ with a TissEco Solidaire textiles recycling bin
Housing cooperative COAB -> similar to the Community Land Trusts we visited in Liverpool a few months ago
Pl4y International which is home to Sport Sans Frontières -> ‘sport for development’
Stop 5: Toulouse
We had an amazing visit to the city of Toulouse as we were very kindly hosted by On Purpose Paris Fellow Valerie and her family! She also took us on a tour of the city’s sights and socents…
Oikos Lab and Cafe -> a brand new collaborative coworkingspace
According to Valerie, Oïkosystème is a newly launched social enterprise that operates through three main lines:
- opening coworking spaces: the “Lab’Oïkos”
- Oïkos Fondation: to promote social enterprise development
- Oïkos Finance: to give financial support to innovative enterprise
Andy Smith (April 2015 London cohort) and Valérie Collard (February 2015 Paris cohort), both On Purpose Fellows, were received by Raphaël Levy, “facilitator” in the first and brand new Lab’Oïkos in France. In the near future, 40 similar workspaces are planned in France, three of which are already on their way, in Toulouse (Saint Aubin), Paris and Nantes.
Raphaël explained that the core message of those places is to restore the human being in its work environment. Oïkosystème wants to be part of a movement for the emergence of new ways of working, based on collaboration and sharing, and bases for happiness at work. Highly influenced and motivated by the Percolab initiative, Lab’Oïkos experiment with collective intelligence at all levels. Oikosystème also wishes to be part of the local community outside the Lab, supporting local citizenship and decision taking.
Allo Bernard -> a socent concierge service
Stop 6: Marseille
This fort is home to Acta Vista -> for 15 years they’ve developed training projects and professional qualifications in heritage skills, dedicated to those furthest away from employment. In other words, they create skills and jobs to renovate historical buildings. Another OnP Paris Fellow — Christophe — works here.
Hello Marseille -> a SocEnt backpackers’ hostel; this is an ethical non-profit project, self-managed by volunteers from around the world.
Stops 8 & 9: Saint Etienne & Lyon
Sport Dans La Ville -> (according to their website) “is France’s leading non-profit, serving disadvantaged kids through sports and job training”
We had a fantastic journey across France and learnt so much along the way — I encourage you to get out there and enjoy a #BikeSocial of you own!
