From a year ago and continuing

Taglines readers will know that we at Mas del Sol became involved, as did many of you, when last December a group of young refugees from the Calais "jungle" were brought to St Antonin and housed for 3 months in the Rehoboth evangelical centre. Many of us have kept in close contact with the "boys" as we all called them and several of the French volunteers became mentors - we call them référents - who undertook to help their charges with the administrative procedures necessary to claim asylum, to deal with appeals against rejection, helping to find accommodation with all that entails (rental agreements, deposits, EDF, France Telecom etc).
To keep these things under control an association was set up called "Et Puis D'Ailleurs" which we may loosely translate as "The next steps".
The president Luc Isnard has written a brief overview of the association and would welcome any additional members who could offer help, or just 5 euros a year subscription.

The association « ET PUIS D’AILLEURS » was set up to support and help the 17 young men who were originally housed at Rehoboth, outside St Antonin last year. This letter describes what it is, its aims, its mode of action and its resources (by way of money).

- Aims :
 To ensure that the 17 young people who were accommodated at Rehoboth can find welcoming amenities, help, support, follow-up and advice.

- Mode of action

  A board of 10 members been elected for one year, together with a bureau composed of a president plus a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer.

 To date  the association has met the « députée » Valérie Rabault, the « Prefet » and Véronique Ortet, the person charged with organising their reception.  Each one of these meetings has allowed us to get to know what opportunities exist and who are the relevant persons ; it has also opened new perspectives toward the integration of the Rehoboth migrants, for whom we have decided to undertake responsibility.

- Our resources :

  They are composed of a 5€ annual contribution, plus the organisation of events to raise money and the appeal to sponsorship or subsidies.
The latter contribution is of course essential because in the effort to support the migrants the individuals who have accepted  the responsibility ( i.e the « référents ») sometimes have to pay for train or bus tickets, or whatever expense, whereas the association could very well do this since it has the legal authorization to do so. In the same way the deposit for a lodging could be covered by the association.

Here is in short what our association of individuals is, and I am most grateful to you for agreeing to pass the message to the British community, and in doing so to help us achieve our goals and functioning.

It is quite clear that, as a donor, a member or a sponsor, you will  be informed of all actions taken and you will be able to follow the evolution of the migrants’ official situation (the « statut ») – those that we are in charge of.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Luc ISNARD,

President of the association
Contact Luc at isnardluc@club-internet.fr