To support small caregivers, these young people who accompany a patient or disabled, an association organizes listening workshops. It also sets up artistic activities, time to blow a little and have fun with children who live similar situations.
Company
From daily life to major challenges, discover the subjects that make local society, such as justice, education, health and family.
France Télévisions uses your email address to send you the “Company” newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Our Privacy Policy
Lucie, Maëlie, Combe, Émie are all names and faces for a reality that is both not very visible but spectacular. “12% of our middle school students are young caregivers, 14% of our high school students are young caregivers and 16% of students are young caregivers”notes Amarantha Bourgeois, director of the JADE association.
The structure supports children between 7 and 16 years old who are forced to assume a role they have not chosen: helping a sick, disabled or loss of autonomy. To its children, the Jade association offers moments of respite, outside the family, between young people who share the same life.
Around a table of the JADE association, children exchange on their similar situations • © FRANCE 3 PIDF
That week, they make a film with professionals, enough to turn a little bit from the charge that weighs on them. “If you accompany a mother who has cancer, for example, or a dad with multiple sclerosis, you can very quickly be caught and have difficulty staying in connection with others”alerts the director.
Lucie a 12 ans : “It is my little brother who has a brain paralysis on the right side. And here it is. But I am not really that I help him as if it is a disabled person, I help him because it is my little brother what”. Lucas is 10 years old and also helps his brother on a daily basis: “It is my brother who is autistic and it is not easy”.
To best help these children “We do not yet have the means to set up all the prevention that should be, starting by working with national education, to identify them and support them on the school level”regrets Amarantha Bourgeois.
Many activities are offered to children in a soothing setting • © FRANCE 3 PIDF
Respondent workshops, free, psychological support, the JADE association offers new answers and aware of a very often ignored question.
Find #kestuf every Tuesday in your newspaper here on France 3 Paris Île-de-France or in replay on France.tv/idf.
