France

The Alter Action Insertion project has beenlaunched in the framework of the Equal Community Initiative. This project takes place in the Somme region, about 150 km North of Paris. The main town of the area is Amiens.

Some figures:

• Number of inhabitants in the Picardie region: 1 857 481
• Number of inhabitants in the Somme area: 555 551
• Number of inhabitants in the Amiens Métropole area: 175 000
• Unemployment rate: 11,1%
• Number of small businesses (less than 10 employees) in the Somme area : 6 419

The main economic and industrial activities are centred around the agro-food industry, the chemical and plastic industry, mechanical equipment industry, metallurgy and metal processing industry. Agriculture also plays a main role at the economic level.

The context to justify the project is materialized by the existence of an important handicraft and small businesses sector which carries a large number of job offers and vocational training in the Somme region. These employment and training possibilities could be opened to the public in difficulties but are at the moment underutilized.

The economic weight of the handicraft and small businesses sector in the Somme area:

• Food sector: 16% (1028 businesses)
• Building sector: 33,20% (2132 businesses)
• Repairing sector: 13,20% (846 businesses)
• Production: 16% (1023 businesses)
• Services: 21,6% (1390 businesses)

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The nature of the problem to be treated in the AAI project is the difficulties met by the public in precarious situation, people in vocational training and young people looking for a job for the first time to break into the business sector.

The small and handicraft businesses can lead to social and professional integration, if their way of being run are taken into account and if the plans of actions fit their requirements by creating new tools and new methods to train the target public and the in-company mentors appointed in the businesses for each trainee.

Our objective is to work on setting up an efficient network which can be the basis of a business integration plan used in many different ways.