A Jardin de Cocagne that knows how to manage its growth, while it helps add jobs

"This achievement will restore hope to persons in desperate straits, by offering them professional activity and individual counseling to deal with their difficulties. Besides, the project couldn't be more environment-friendly."

Jean-Pierre Courtillier

Barely a year and a half after the actual launch of its operations, Jardin de Cocagne de la Barbuise, in Saint-Etienne-sous-Barbuise in the Aube district, is already juggling with its success. Today, the nonprofit provides work for eleven employees aged from 25 to 60, who come from the Arcis-sur-Aube population pool and all live on welfare.

Thanks to them, every week, forty-five families receive a basket filled with organic vegetables. The experiment has been so successful that production will be doubled as of this year. The nonprofit will thus accommodate another five persons in difficulty and counsel them on finding a job and returning to mainstream society.

Rubbing shoulders with business players to facilitate job integration

By expanding from 1.5 to 3 hectares of cultivated area, Jardin de la Barbuise will produce enough to supply the demand of its ninety member families. For the staff of the association, this group is interlinked with strengthening bonds with the local socio-economic fabric, in order to find jobs for the employees when their contracts end.

The Veolia Foundation therefore resolutely backs this extension project, which involves the purchase of new facilities (farming, irrigation and maintenance equipment, including a tractor-lawnmower) and the furnishing of sheltered areas and buildings.