Support most vulnerable & fight against isolation

In France, cultural inequalities are strong. A vector of social connection and belonging, culture conveys identity and brings people together around common pleasures and leisure activities. For many, however, it has become a luxury. Certain cultural activities are inaccessible to the most precarious, whether due to their cost, lack of time or even the exclusionary and elitist image that emerges from them. This cultural glass ceiling reinforces inequalities and pushes certain people to stay away from certain cultural forms, by choice or by constraint.

Through the "Chanter pour Vivre Ensemble" project, Secours Catholique in Loiret (45) wants to enable the most vulnerable to learn lyrical singing and create the opportunity to participate in a friendly unifying event.

Secours Catholique in Loiret and the many volunteers who make it up act every day on multiple themes in the fight against precariousness. The action of Secours Catholique finds its meaning in an overall vision of the fight against poverty, which aims to restore the dignity of the human person and is part of a perspective of sustainable development. The choice of our actions is guided by the following principles:

• promote the place and voice of people living in situations of poverty
• make everyone an actor in their own development
• partner with people living in situations of poverty
• act for the development of the human person in all its dimensions

In total in Loiret, there are 31 local teams and 600 volunteers, who work in 29 reception areas including day centers and solidarity grocery stores. They coordinate the actions of the delegation around several activities aimed at combating precariousness. So volunteers act through:

• The fight against isolation thanks to multiple times of conviviality, leisure support, family vacations and cultural activities.
• The fight for dignified access to food through multiple actions such as social grocery stores, service vouchers, partnership with local producers, solidarity fresh vegetables and fruits baskets and emergency food packages.
• The link and social reintegration with support which is first of all caring listening at all levels, social and economic support and attention paid to the projects of each family in the multiple reception places of the delegation.

Anchored in our actions aimed at promoting social bonds and developing empowerment, "Chanter pour Vivre Ensemble" aims to enable the remobilization of people in precariousness through lyrical singing, to restore their self-confidence and to promote their talents. Culture is a space of freedom where, when the conditions are right, everyone can discover their talents, express their creativity and share it.
These workshops have in common that they are an action carried out by a group of people brought together by the same aspirations and the same interests, who organize themselves together to build a project or overcome a common difficulty, to improve life.

Through the discovery and learning of opera, under the aegis of the singer Malika Bellaribi, the project is divided into three sub-objectives:

• Restore self-confidence, enable self-reconstruction: develop people’s power to act and give them the strength to overcome their obstacles.
• Promote talents: fight against societal prejudices regarding precariousness and allow people to express their personality and feel at home in an environment where they too often feel excluded
• Promote access to culture by democratizing an art that is often unknown to the most popular segments of the population.

Culture, in all its forms, is a powerful vector of social ties. It allows everyone to express themselves freely, to meet and commune around a work, through sharing or collaboration. Singing, and more particularly opera, creates in its choirs a link between the participants, whether between themselves or with the public. It allows everyone to be part of a whole, to come together around a common pleasure.

Through this project, Secours Catholique wishes to restore confidence to people experiencing extreme exclusion to enable them to regain self-confidence. Training to sing means discovering new abilities, understanding that you can still evolve and learn. Surrounded by comrades who also want to progress and by an audience who comes to listen to them, the people supported then gradually regain the confidence and dignity, necessary to escape from precariousness.

It is by breaking down barriers, whether socio-cultural or resulting from a loss of self-confidence, "Chanter pour Vivre Ensemble" benefits the people who participate in it. Together, they learn to regain confidence in themselves as much as in their comrades to escape the circle of exclusion.

"Chanter pour Vivre Ensemble" is co-constructed in partnership with the singer Malika Bellari and her association “Voix en développement” which brings together people of all ages in so-called difficult neighborhoods around workshops dedicated to the practice of singing.

Precarious people supported by Secours Catholique will be able to participate in discovery workshops open to all, led by the singer. Following this introduction, which will allow everyone to get to know each other and feel comfortable within the project group, several sessions will allow participants to try their hand at singing, often for the first time.

In order to offer a quality internship and share a real life experience between all participants, the cycle of workshops will continue with 2-hour courses, once a week, for a period of between 12 and 18 months. This internship, while it allows the people benefiting from it to acquire new skills and knowledge, also makes it possible to create strong social bonds between participants and thus break the circle of isolation linked to precariousness.

Several performances will be organized in order to disseminate opera culture more widely, beyond the people chosen to participate in the entire project, in particular a performance planned during the General Assembly of Secours Catholique in Lourdes, on stage, facing to an audience of nearly 300 people. This life-size training will offer a first experience of performing in front of an audience for the people in the group.

Singing to live together will end with an exceptional evening, on December 7, 2024 at the Gérard Philipe theater in Orléans Métropole, where the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet will be performed by the participants, alongside professional soloists.

The project targets people accompanied by the Secours Catholique du Loiret delegation. 30 people, adults and children, are involved in the cycle of workshops led by the singer. A team of around twenty volunteers will take care of organizing the project alongside the Voix en Développement association.

The budget for this projet is 50,000.€ including the workshops and the organization of 2 representations of Carmen