Foundation AMIPI - Bernard VENDRE

For the last 50 years, Foundation AMIPI - Bernard VENDRE has given the possibility to persons with cognitive disabilities to getting improved via manual activities and to getting their own place in companies.

Six local factories in the French Pays de Loire and Centre Val de Loire regions employ today more than 700 disabled operators, with as activity electrical wiring ; they are mainly dedicated to the car industry. Over 40 years, about 1,500 persons got long-lasting jobs in companies considered as ordinary companies which therefore implied the cancellation of €350 million social spending.

OUR ACTIONS

The actions of the Foundation is based on three complementary cornerstones :

1 - Learning : our pedagogy is based on neuronal development thanks to manual activities and it was validated by a scientific comity. In 1985, the wiring activity was identified as learning support adapted to the needs of the different populations the Foundation was hosting. This type of activity is mainly a manual activity and can be divided into numerous basic tasks.

2 - Industrial requirement in the car industry : Factories are the privileged sites for implementing learnings. They give the possibility to operators for developing the industrial skills and know-how thanks to which they will find long-lasting jobs in companies.

3 - Long lasting insertion in companies : the Foundation intend to be a crossover for going ahead. Each person can benefit from a customized programme and therefore from a permanent contract in a company.
The Foundation help the companies with a three step 1-2-3 insertion procedure : internship, availability, permanent contract.

One man with one challenge ...

The Foundation was created by a man named Maurice Vendre who died in 2014, January and whose prophetic vision still influences more than ever the action of the Foundation.

In the 60s, Maurice Vendre - the father of a child with Down syndrome - was not satisfied with the educative and professional systems that were supposed to taking charge of his son. He was in total disagreement with the segregation that the persons so-called "mentally disabled" had to face, from their early age.

He was convinced that thanks to customized learnings these persons could be in capacity to developing their mental skills and to get improved in acquiring skills. He intended to have his son being socially integrated via a professional activity in a so-called standard environment.

This is how both he and his spouse, Maryse Vendre, started with a twofold adventure, both scientific and corporate.

... And a vision

A Society shall only get developed if the most fragile persons, and in particular those with cognitive disabilities, are in capacity to self-development via learning. This is the vision driven by the Foundation and also the vision that the Foundation inherited from Maurice Vendre. This how he built up factories which represent a fantastic means for developing learnings and thereby for enabling people to be autonomous.

On a daily basis, three principles are piloting our actions :

- Work and cognitive disability therapy : a same challenge

Trying to solve a problem by enclosing a person in a dedicated category is an illusion. Only a global approach for regenerating the territory ecosystems - and for example via the protection of industrial jobs - will give birth to durable solutions.

- Twofold organization, the corner stone of AMIPI Foundation model

This twofold organization means that a same task will lead to both producing good quality products and to developing the brains of our collaborators.

We build our organization on the most recent neuroscientific breakthrough - and, for example, on Professor Oughourlian's works about mirror neurons - for embedding a collaborative managerial culture as an additional condition for this twofold organization which represents a prerequisite for complying with our missions.

- Fluency, a daily challenge for the Foundation

Today's daily reality for the Foundation is the existence of people who step out, of people who get improved, of people who step in.

This fluency can only be copped with thanks to the cooperation of our local partners for the recruitment and the insertion which also means added value if we consider that the operators benefit from technical and human training and also that they will be integrated into collective labour agreement procedure.