Since 2022, volunteers from Secours populaire de Privas have been going to the foot of buildings to do readings. As part of the educational and academic support implemented by the association, this initiative builds bridges between children and books and creates enchanted interludes for the whole family.
The children arrived early – it’s not quite 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Amira is still out of breath from running when she sits down next to Caroline, on a low wall covered with multicolored mosaic shards, very close to the large acacia tree under which the other Secours populaire volunteers have placed cushions, blankets and trunks of books. . Amira laughs, delighted to listen to the story of a little caterpillar who is constantly interrupted during her lunch. “ I come every time », Announces with satisfaction the 6-year-old little girl. She lives, like all the other children, in the popular Nouvel-Horizon district of Privas – but everyone here calls her by her old name, Lancelot. In just five minutes, Caroline, Marie-Hélène, Zoulikha, Valérie and Marie set up a cozy and colorful reading corner for the fifteen children present, watched over by their mothers. Every fortnight, Secours populaire volunteers create reading time for residents at the foot of the buildings. The children quickly take off their shoes and, caressed by the October sun, take off their coats. “ In winter, it’s harder, we find ourselves in stairwells that smell of pee, where there are drug dealers. » Behind Caroline’s fluty voice, her mischievous air, shines an unfailing determination: that of the Secours populaire volunteers to pass on a taste for reading, to defend equal access to culture for all children.
“We learn new words, words that are beautiful. »
When Caroline joined the team of volunteers, she created a bridge with the Ardèche Departmental Media Library, where she is a youth librarian. The team therefore has a regularly renewed stock of new books suitable for very young children. It is now Anna, a little 4-year-old from Mahor, who is cuddling up to Caroline. Both sing nursery rhymes, taken from tiny books that the child chooses from the compartments of a cube. Anna sings, dances, spins around. She enjoys these words that she plays in her mouth and laughs at this funny hen who stuffs herself with hard bread. She runs to Nadhuimati, her mother, to sing her the song that she now knows by heart. “ With children, we never miss a readingconfides Nadhuimati. We don’t have many books at home – three or four. When the volunteers arrive with trunks full of books, my children come running. » She listens to her child singing then picks up her train of thought. “ I like stories too. One day, I slipped into the skin of one of the characters so much that I screamed like my children! These are moments that I share with them and which bring us closer. »
The tree embraces the whole world with its foliage. Children seem like fruits born from its roots, ripened in its sap. Many of them come from migrant families who have traveled a long way to find peace or security: Lebanese, Armenian, Albanian, Algerian, they share a taste for beautiful stories. Kumri, an Albanian mother, exclaims: “ Reading is a blessing: we learn new words, words that are beautiful. » It shows a boy of around ten who is reading a story to two little ones. “ This is my son, Romeo. His pleasure is reading to other children. There, I know he is happy. » Roméo, as well as all the children present, benefit from the educational and academic support provided by the Secours populaire de l’Ardèche. Volunteers help them do their homework in an individualized manner; They also take part in numerous cultural outings – to the media library, the book festival or the theater, in the surrounding countryside or at the educational farm. The readings at the foot of the buildings are part of this network of actions, which aim to offer these children tools to discover and understand the world. Just like tasting your magical and sensitive side. “ Reading offers the possibility of flying into another worldthinks Marie-Hélène, retired teacher. It allows us to reveal emotions that we didn’t dare say and to which we will be able to put words. To tell yourself that others feel certain things like you do – and to feel less alone. »
“A child snuggles up to you, you take him under your wing and you make him take off. »
At first, Zulikha listened. Then, one day when there were a lot of children, she put on the blue vest of the Secours populaire volunteers and started reading. First to his own children, then to all children. Today, she is one of the active volunteers of the Privas committee; today, at the foot of the tree, she reads. This gives her, she confides, “ a great pleasure and a great pride, because these moments are very important for the little ones. Many mothers cannot take this time for their children because they work hard or cannot read French. » Reading means preventing injustice, ensuring equality, offering everyone their share of opportunities. “ Young children are sensitive to the attention given to them, to the musicality of words and images, Caroline explains. They create reading habits, associate books with pleasure and develop their language. » Under the eyes of their mothers, they grow up, while they forge bonds of complicity and solidarity. At the end of this afternoon, Zoulikha listens again. Amani confides in her, tells her of her anguish because the bombs are falling on her country, Lebanon, where her people live. While she talks about the war, her two children, a few centimeters away, are immersed in the world of books, where no weapon can reach them, where laughter and carefreeness reign supreme. It’s Valérie, a college English teacher, who transports them there. Their laughter demonstrates their unconditional love for the big-mouthed frog. “ That’s what reading is: a child comes to snuggle up to you, you take him under your wing, you read him a story and you get him off his feet », slips Valérie tenderly.
« This is the fifth time I’ve come! » Amani is categorical – it’s important accounts and precious moments. “ I meet my neighbors and my friends, we have a good time together, it allows me to hear French and speak it. What the children like is the stories but also the atmosphere that there is when the volunteers are there. It’s both happy and peaceful. » Valérie has barely closed the frog’s book when two little figures emerge from the cushions and run to the trunk to find another story. The early evening sun gilds faces, outlines silhouettes and lengthens shadows. The wind is blowing hard and the colorful pile of throws and blankets form an island in the storm or, rather, outline a raft paddling towards adventure. The pages of the books are so many veils which offer him his fanciful directions, his dreams of treasures and allow wonderful encounters: a caterpillar which makes holes, a harmless ogre, a green mouse, a hen which pecks at hard bread, a troop funny penguins, a very talkative frog. The squalls multiply, the cold bites a little when the sun hides, but no one seems to notice or suffer from it because what the volunteers have built, at the foot of the buildings and under the acacia, is a shelter.
