ARI - France

Training people with disabilities

The very low school enrollment rate of people with disabilities makes it difficult for them to access mainstream jobs. This marginalization accentuates the difficulties of self-esteem and rejection, thus hindering the personal development of this group. It is essential to help adolescents with mental disorders and people with disabilities to find their passions and to enable them to achieve their potential through action.

Collaboration with fablabs

Three fablabs, Make It Marseille, Urban Prod and Sharewood, have joined forces with ARI to set up a series of workshops so that these people can learn about the "possibilities of doing" through various trades.



This project consists in promoting the pre-professional integration of young people with mental health problems who are often partially out of school by helping them discover skills and professions: masking techniques, straw marquetry, carpentry, laser, jewelry, leatherwork, music, 3D printing, journalism, etc.



In this way, they are able to develop new skills and then do internships in companies and go back to school. 

This project also aims at opening up these courses to young people with severe disabilities and to disabled workers.

Discovery of various trades

Each of the 3 fablabs has its own speciality:

• Make it Marseille offers workshops in textile making, jewelry, interior decoration, leather goods and straw marquetry.
• Urban Prod helps the most vulnerable people to cope with the technological changes in society. They offer a workshop to discover digital tools and identity, a "storytelling" workshop, a workshop to discover production tools (photo, video and radio) with their different production phases (writing, filming, post-prod, etc.) with individual project follow-up.
• Share-Wood Marseille is a 500m² shared workshop offering equipment and experts in order to make wooden objects and proposes a woodworking and cabinetmaking course.

A strong emphasis is placed on individual support for each of the young beneficiaries. Therefore, to facilitate learning, the three groups of six people are each followed by one of the three fablab partners of the association. Two educators accompany each group to allow the young people to be followed in a more individualized way. Each session is led by 1 or 2 people from the fablab concerned, depending on the theme of the session. 

What the Air Liquide Foundation does

The Air Liquide Foundation's subsidy covers half of the costs of the services provided by the fablabs.

Fabienne Lebayle, Director of Administration and Management, ALEHOS Services