“I was afraid to try. In Kabul, where I grew up, we didn’t ride bikes., says Ahmad, helmet on his head and yellow vest on his shoulders. The first time this 26-year-old Afghan asylum seeker rode an ATV was in the fall of 2022, in Saint-Just-le-Martel, Haute-Vienne. If he now travels with ease the country lanes of this town of 2,600 inhabitants and has obtained national education approval to accompany schoolchildren in the town on their bike rides, it is partly thanks to the Olympic Games and Paralympics. Or more precisely to a project supported by the Paris 2024 endowment fund, created in 2019 and endowed with 50 million euros.
His goal ? “To ensure that the organization of the Games has meaning for the whole country and that it resonates in all territories, including those geographically distant from the event”sums up Marie Barsacq, director in charge of the impact and legacy of Paris 2024. priority, refugees…
This involves co-financing initiatives that strengthen the role of sport in society. No medals, competition or performance at stake, but support for the values conveyed by sporting activity and its usefulness in terms of education, well-being, inclusion… From 2020 to 2022, 12 million euros were granted, to which public actors and the sports movement added 32 million: 700 projects were financed, for 2.5 million beneficiaries.
These 44 million euros are distributed equitably between the sports federations, the communities hosting the Olympic events and civil society. In number, it is on this last component, called “Impact 2024”, carried by the associative fabric and the local authorities, that the winners are mainly concentrated (600 out of the 700).
In Saint-Just-le-Martel, the project is carried out by the local mountain bike club and La Terre en Part, the association which accommodates Ahmad and fifteen other asylum seekers on a farm devoted to organic market gardening and the sale of vegetables. In 2021, the two structures received 10,000 euros in aid, making it possible to buy fifteen second-hand bicycles, repair equipment and safety equipment.
A claimed “leverage effect”
“It’s an idea that we wanted to put in place, but the endowment fund accelerated it. Rather than hoping for mountain bike donations in dribs and drabs, we were able to acquire them all at once”, appreciates Boris Skierkowski, co-founder, with his wife Clémence, of the place of life The Earth in sharing. A “leverage effect” claimed by Marie Barsacq: “There was already funding from the National Sports Agency, the National Olympic Committee or the Paralympic Committee, but there, we gathered the means in the same place to concentrate the requests and allow more massive development. »
You have 58.07% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
2023-05-04 15:30:05
#HauteVienne #social #utility #sport #boosted #endowment #fund
