The mobilization does not weaken around the families on the street of the Lezay Marnésia college in Strasbourg. While teachers continue to occupy the premises, some parents have decided not to send their children to college this Friday, November 15.
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“Hello Sabina, when will they come to shelter us because we are very cold and it is raining, the rain has come in, please tell me when they will come to shelter us“. Children have their own words, and they are sometimes of such force that they allow no dispute, no divergent opinions. No one, moreover, dares to speak out against the accommodation of children of Lezay Marnesia in the empty staff accommodation of the college. However, this Friday, November 15, teachers will begin their seventh day of mobilization without a solution being found.
This text has been displayed on the establishment’s fence since Tuesday, November 12. This is a text message sent by a 5th grade student to an association volunteer the day before. It definitively shifted the mobilization of teachers, who have occupied their college since Friday November 8, into another dimension: the next day, they decided to enter into civil disobedience and host around twenty people within the walls of the college. “It was this message that made us decide, we said to ourselves that it was not possible to continue like that“, confides Céline Balasse, professor of history and geography.
It was these children’s words, too, which caused awareness among certain children and parents at the school. They immediately decided not to “not stand idly by“faced with this situation, and to support, in their own way, the squatting teachers. One day”dead college” is organized this Friday: not all volunteer parents will send their children to class. “At the beginning, there were ten of us, explains Ilknur Usdi Aydin, mother of two children in 3rd and 5th grade. But the more we tell others about it, the more volunteers we have. We feel enormous support being organized.“
Even if not everyone will come to the gathering scheduled for 8 a.m. in front of the school this Friday, everyone is doing their part, for example by contributing to a collection of donations organized for several days for refugee aid associations, or by going to the Meinau market to meet other parents who were not aware of the mobilization.
Above all, parents felt a thrill in their children. “The Krimmeri camp (the one where most of the street families in question live) is near the neighborhood, our children see it, explique Ilknur. They understand that there are people who are only sheltered by pieces of fabric, and they feel the cold which gets stronger day by day.” Yusuf, her 14-year-old son, has already told his mother that he will accompany her to the rally this Friday. “It made me sad to learn that children my age were living outside like that. It’s important what teachers are doing at the moment, I think.”
They ask questions and it gives us the opportunity to explain to them that we are lucky to have a roof over our heads, that some of their comrades sleep in a tent in the cold.
Anabelle Ernwein, parent
Most of them had no idea that some of their own classmates were in this situation. “We remain very discreet about the identity of students with social difficulties, so that they are not stigmatized, explains Céline Labasse. But since the beginning of the movement, we have noticed that the other students are interested and asking questions, they pass links to the articles between them.”
Annabelle Ernwein has two daughters in college and a son in kindergarten, still Lezay Marnesiawhere fifteen students also live on the street. “They ask questions and it gives us the opportunity to explain to them that we are lucky to have a roof over our heads, that some of their comrades sleep in a tent in the cold.“Once the questions were asked and the parents’ answers were assimilated, the children rushed to their room. Headed for the toy box.”I made it clear to them that this was not what they needed at the moment.“, smiles Anabelle. But that doesn’t matter: children have their own words…
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