Focus on Les amis des caves Bertine
Bringing people with professional insertion difficulties closer to jobs and socialisation around the restoration of a 19th century printing shop.
Stéphane Rousseau, Project Director of Human Resources of Pullman, MGallery, ibis, IHMP (Evry) and IHMP Manager at RH Operations Management.
Les amis des caves Bertine was created in 2010 with the goal of restoring the “caves Bertine” cellars, with the aim of installing there a 19th century printing shop and that will serve as a workplace for the insertion of disadvantaged young people.
The town of Moulins has a very ancient tradition in books and printing. The Imprimeries Réunies, located in the very centre of Moulins, preserved the archives and antique equipment, the heritage of over 200 years of local printing activity and history. They have asked the association of friends of the Bertine cellars to showcase this unexploited asset.
To bring this heritage back to life, the association wishes to create a printshop that will operate 19th century machines and apply ancestral Japanese paper-treatment techniques. The workshop will be set up in the 15th-century vaulted Bertine cellars, located under the current printshop, and which are in need of restoration.
The project will be carried out by:
- 20 youngsters from the Régie de quartier de Moulins association. On the restoration worksite, the young people will be trained in the construction trades and will help clear the cellars. In this way they will learn useful skills that will help them achieve a better professional insertion. They will earn 80% of the minimum wage for the work.
- Ten young people from the solidarity shop of the Viltaîs association, a local structure that addresses the professional insertion of disadvantaged young people and which has set up a “solidarity shop” selling customised items. The amis des caves Bertine association offers these youths training to acquire a new skill and thus expand their assets. For the printshop restoration, these young people are taught by a paper maker of the Imprimeries Réunies and a designer specialising in Japanese paper. With them, they will cerate a line of stationery (notepad, diaries, notebooks, etc.) with paper from the restored printshop, which they can subsequently sell in the solidarity shop.
The printshop restoration will take 3 years (2011-2013, to renovate the 3 rooms).
