Cover
story Salvaging good, salvaging lives
By MARGOT PATTERSON
Longjumeau, France
Jacques Poisson was faintly apologetic about the enormous mound of
trash bags lying in the backyard of the house. We have very little space
here, he explained as he led me round the corner past old stoves and
refrigerators standing in the yard and into a building crammed with fans,
clocks, books, toys, radios, lamps, beds, chairs, armoires and other pieces of
furniture. These, like the clothes in the stuffed-to-overflowing trash bags
wed passed, would be sorted and, if possible, repaired and resold or
otherwise recycled.
Recycling junk is the work of the ragpickers of Emmaüs. Here
in the Emmaüs house at Longjumeau, just outside Paris, 40 men make their
living valorizing old goods and living in community. They call
themselves compagnons, and whether one translates the word as
comrade or companion or member of a
company, the word connotes a certain esprit de corps that reflects the
spirit of Emmaüs. Pierre Chiffre, director of the community here, speaks
of the mission of solidarity.
The work at Emmaüs is not a goal in itself but is only
important as a means to solidarity, he said. Poisson, 40, describes the
Emmaüs ethos in more down-to-earth terms: The work is hard, but the
atmosphere is terrific.
There are 110 Emmaüs communities in France. Founded in 1949
by a French priest known as the Abbé Pierre to help the down-and-out
living on the streets, Emmaüs has in the intervening years become not only
a national institution in France, familiar to every Frenchman, but an
international movement. Today, 446 Emmaüs communities exist in 37
countries and four continents. The purpose of Emmaüs is to help the
marginalized and the excluded, those who are without homes and without work.
The motto of Emmaüs is Serve first those who suffer most.
While each Emmaüs community is different, work, welcome and solidarity
with others are the common values of the organization. If you knock on the door
of an Emmaüs home in the middle of the night, the community will welcome
you if there is room. You can stay a night, a month, a year or a lifetime. The
only condition for joining an Emmaüs community is the desire to enter and
a willingness to abide by the rules of communal life.
Its the poor helping the poor, said journalist
Laurent Larcher, describing how Emmaüs works. While France provides
government assistance to the poor and unemployed, he and others say that
government agencies that give food and shelter to the homeless and most
charitable organizations as well lack the spirit of fraternity that
distinguishes Emmaüs, whose compagnons not only support themselves
but raise money to help those in greater need. Theres a spirit of romance
to Emmaüs, said Larcher, who wrote a series of articles about the
movement. To be a compagnon means something noble, something
romantic.
Everyone has a story
There are about 4,000 compagnons in France. They come from
many different walks of life. Some are or have been alcoholics; some are
illegal aliens in France without proper papers; some are former prisoners; some
are people who have had to contend with divorce or other family problems; all
are people who need a job and a place to live and have found them at
Emmaüs.
Chiffre said each member of the community at Longjumeau has his
own story and his own reason for being there. There are mentally ill
people here but no more or less than other places, he said. The
same is true of alcoholics and people who have problems with groups.
The 46-year-old Chiffre is himself testimony to Emmaüss
diversity. A former nurse, Chiffre has been the director of Emmaüs at
Longjumeau for three years. Since 1993, hes been the director of six
Emmaus communities. Before that, he was in two other Emmaüs communities as
a compagnon.
Why would a man give up a middle-class job as a nurse to join a
group of ragpickers?
Its boring to work in a hospital, Chiffre said.
Here, I do 20,000 different things in a day. Nothing is impossible, and I
have the impression that I can respect human beings more here than in a normal
job.
I am morally satisfied, Chiffre said of his work.
Before, I was chronically dissatisfied.
Each week the community at Longjumeau receives about 360 calls
from those with goods they want to donate. Every day four trucks, each manned
by two compagnons, make pick-ups while the other compagnons are
involved in the work of sorting through goods, selecting which are salvageable,
and repairing and reselling them. Prices are kept low so that goods may be
accessible to everyone. You can buy an armchair for about $15 or an armoire for
about $40. Jackets go for $3, a blouse for $1, and a T-shirt for even less.
In the year 2000, the community at Lonjumeau collected 38,980
metric cubes of objects for recycling. The compagnons at Longjumeau were
able to give 905,840 francs, or about $130,000, to assist others outside the
community. Chiffre estimates the community gave more than a million francs to
those in need in 2001.
The emphasis on service matters to Jacques Poisson. At one time a
train conductor, for five years Poisson lived on the street. He describes it as
a period of time when he was eating a little and drinking more. It sounded
rough, but Poisson said, Its easy to get money by begging. But one
has no dignity, he said.
Now, working at Emmaüs, Poisson feels hes doing
something worthy. I dont lose my day. I do something useful in my
life.
Perhaps equally important is the sense of community Emmaüs
offers. People here always find somebody to talk to, Chiffre said.
In the modern world, one of the most difficult things is
loneliness.
The society of others
Emmanuel Bouttevilla, who answers the phones at Longjumeau,
describes Emmaüs as a different way of life and, sometimes, he thinks, a
better one. A factory worker before joining the community three years ago,
Bouttevilla lost his job following nervous depression. For eight months he was
in a psychiatric clinic. Afterward, he returned to his job, but said he had
many problems. He drank and eventually was hospitalized again.
The difference between life before and at Emmaüs is
that here one has the society of others, said Bouttevilla, 42.
In my preceding life, poverty was nothing, Bouttevilla
said. I had money, an apartment. I thought I was happy. It wasnt
true. The truth is when you touch misery.
People in the world, Bouttevilla said, think theyre happy,
but their hearts are cold. They dont speak to their neighbor. They
dont speak to anyone. They dont have the time.
Longjumeau is an all-male community, but many Emmaüs
communities are mixed houses for both men and women. The rules are few: no
violence or drinking, respect for others, cleanliness, do your best at work.
During the workweek, compagnons are expected to take lunch and dinner
together. On the weekend people are free to do what they like. Though started
by a priest, Emmaüs has no religious or political affiliation. Its name is
taken from a town in the Holy Land where the desperate rediscovered hope.
This name evokes for us, believers or non-believers, our common conviction that
love alone can link us and cause us to advance together.
Berny Camboukis, a compagnon for 10 years, is a former
Capuchin friar who left before taking final vows. I thought myself more
useful, more free while keeping my spirituality, said Kamboukis,
explaining his decision.
For Camboukis, the absence of a religious affiliation is one of
Emmaüs strengths. One has a certain liberty of dialogue that
one does not have if one represents something, he said. At
Emmaüs one respects everybody, whatever their religion, their color, their
politics, to the degree that they respect others.
Emmaüs celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1999. Marking the
anniversary, the organization issued a statement. Over the past 50 years,
exclusion, far from disappearing, has become an enduring characteristic of
contemporary society. Our conviction today is that one can remake the world in
order that it become more just, in order that everyone can find a place in it
and live with dignity.
In speaking of exclusion, not simply homelessness, Emmaüs
underscored that poverty and isolation are not simply or always economic
problems. The pervasiveness of such problems and his own tireless efforts to
deal with them may help explain the tremendous respect the Abbé Pierre,
Emmaüs founder, commands in France today (see story below).
It can happen to anyone
The average Frenchman realizes that homelessness can happen
to anyone. Nobody has found a real solution to the homeless, to the problem of
exclusion, said Camboukis.
In France as in the United States and other countries in the West,
jobs are becoming harder to find. Poisson and 52-year-old compagnon Guy
Laville, a former truck driver, say its impossible to find work in France
if youre over 40.
Before it was possible to find work with a small boss, but
now there are no small bosses. Everyone is a big boss, Poisson said.
You have only Emmaüs or the street.
Because of this, the role Emmaüs plays in the lives of those
it serves has somewhat changed from what it was originally.
Today, more and more, Emmaüs is a place to live for
people. Its no longer a place where people come en route, Chiffre
said.
Observing the Emmaüs community at Longjumeau, that
doesnt seem so bad. Even on a quiet Saturday afternoon, with most of the
compagnons away from work and out of the house, one gets a sense of home
and hopefulness. As Poisson said, Emmaüs is a big family.
Margot Patterson is NCR senior writer. Her e-mail
address is mpatterson@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, February 8,
2002
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