The encounter

For some time, I couldn't reconcile my private and professional life with a harder reality closer to home: the Val Fourré neighborhood, inhabited by a population in social and economic difficulty... and sometimes worse. I felt a growing frustration with my inability to give to others. And then I had a meeting with an executive of Aptima, who made me want to join them, to help them, to offer them my meager skills in Human Resources.

All this happened progressively. A first meeting to introduce me, to be adopted by the small group of idealistic entrepreneurs. A second to become familiar with their activities and their expectations. The meetings followed one another. They were held once every month. We addressed issues of collective bargaining, recruitment, project development, profitability, late subsidies... everything that I had learned in my little sheet metal job.

The publics received by APTIMA are men and women who have had the misfortunate of never having gone to school, of being born in the wrong place, of making mistakes, sometimes battered women... But all determined to take their lives in their hands by learning a craft and rejoining the professional world.

I have accompanied this ship for more than five years now. My present functions barely leave me any time, but with the other executives and the staff team, the APTIMA project is advancing, and every day brings us gratitude for this adventure.

Neither my political or religious convictions, nor my social connections, have pointed to my executive role in APTIMA. It's simply the culmination of my personal history. The fact of knowing that one is lucky to have a job and a roof over one's head. I'm not saying that we await our fate with arms folded. I only stretch out my hand to those who do likewise. But these people, executives and employees, are inspired by a desire to control their fate, and it was worthwhile to devote some of my time (sometimes to the detriment of my four kids, my husband, my friends) since they stretched out their hands to me.

By supporting APTIMA, by engaging with it, I also pay a tribute to my "Choumacs" (that's what French sheet metal workers call each other). They gave me a lot and in my turn, I give too.