For several days, the social and solidarity economy branch of Emmaüs has had a big challenge: recovering the furniture from the Paris 2024 Olympic village.
Sylvia Amicone receives this week in “Positive Impact” Gwendoline Lafarge, head of the Olympic Games project for the charitable organization.
She talks about this mission and explains how the association is organized.
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54,000 pieces of furniture, 9,000 mattresses and 11,000 pillows. For several weeks, the Olympic village and the media village welcomed thousands of athletes and journalists. Now you have to empty everything. The Emmaüs association, which supports people in very precarious circumstances, collects all of this furniture. Objective, to give a second life to all the furniture used for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Gwendoline Lafarge, Olympic Games project manager for Emmaüs Défi, talks about this challenge in the podcast of those who have a positive impact on society and the world, to listen to above. The show is broadcast every Saturday afternoon on LCI, channel 26 of TNT. “It is a real desire on the part of the organization of the Paris 2024 Games to give a positive impact to the furniture. They asked the suppliers of the Olympic Games to find a reuse solution for the products made available to the athletes. our history and our furniture recovery expertise, we were chosen But we had to educate international suppliers who do not know us.reports Gwendoline Lafarge.
This “exceptional opportunity” becomes “enormous logistical challenge”. Gwendoline Lafarge is piloting this special system with real assembly line work involving nearly 800 handlers mobilized for the occasion. The CMA CGM foundation is responsible for transporting and storing all the equipment. It made nearly 420 trucks available.
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The Emmaüs equipment solidarity bank then redistributes this furniture and other mattresses. Two solutions: they give them to families on the street who have access to permanent housing for the first time, or they resell them in one of the 112 Emmaüs centers throughout France. A godsend, recognizes Gwendoline Lafarge: “Usually, mattresses are more and more difficult to find and it is impossible for us to satisfy all the beneficiaries. Companies optimize their stocks and individuals revalue their furniture on the secondary market. There, this village furniture Olympic Games represent 1 to 2 years of donation.”
The head of the Emmaüs solidarity bank estimates that nearly 4,000 households should benefit. For a bed, for example, you need to count a “thirty euros, a table around 12 or 15 euros, an armchair around twenty”, explains Gwendoline Lafarge. These are “quality products which have been designed, created for the event and used by athletes. Therefore with highly developed ergonomics”, rejoices the head of the association. As a result, the 273 employees undergoing reintegration at Emmaüs do not have to sort or rehabilitate: “These Olympic products are almost new”adds Gwendoline Lafarge. She invites the curious to visit the sales areas. She emphasizes the symbolic side of furniture and predicts surprises: “There is a piece of history and a form of nostalgia. These are useful goods to equip our accommodation. In addition to the furniture, we have some 4,000 found objects left by the athletes in the Olympic village.” Enough to unearth treasures that belonged to stars!
