[     Projects listing ](/en/supported-projects "  Projects listing")



 

 

 

Based in Montpellier, Adages (Association for the  
 development of specialist establishment management), manages 17 establishments.  
 They are open to adults and children who are handicapped, social misfits,  
 or experiencing hardship. Regain, one of these centers, is more specifically  
 focused on developing parenting skills. It includes several services:  
 Parenthèse,  
 a place where parents and children can meet; Relais  
 parental des Lilas,  
 open 7/7 to children aged between 2 and 10 who find themselves in an  
 emergency situation; and Service d’accueil familial d’urgence that provides emergency placement for children aged 0 to 4 with home-based  
 child carers.  
 At the end of 2004, Regain moved into a municipal cultural center in  
 Croix-d’Argent, a neighborhood classified as a “priority  
 sensitive zone”, in the middle of an uninspiring 3,400-square meter  
 site covered in asphalt and weeds.

## A place to revive intergenerational and social ties

To transform this  
 unappealing environment into a more attractive place where people would  
 want to come, the managers of Regain came up with the idea of creating  
 a “garden in the city.” The project  
 involved developing, in liaison with the Atelier  
 permanent d’initiation à l’environnement  
 urbain \[Permanent workshop for urban environment initiation\], two separate  
 areas. The cultural center’s garden, with a bamboo hedge, would  
 house the meetings organized by Parenthèses between parents and  
 children. A separate garden for Multiaccueil and Relais parental, would  
 enable children to garden apace with the seasons and to develop an awareness  
 of sustainable development (waste sorting, production of compost, etc.).

 One final advantage of this green oasis, but far from  
 being the least important: the neighborhood’s elderly or those living in the nearby retirement  
 home were invited to participate in creating the vegetable garden and a  
 bulb garden. This new space will help rebuild the neighborhood’s  
 impaired social fabric. In the medium term, it may be opened to everyone  
 on public holidays, and become the venue for certain neighborhood events.  
 By devoting 32,000 euros to landscaping this garden, the Veolia Environnement  
 Foundation has affirmed its commitment to this dynamic and unique project  
 along with the Municipality and the General Council.