C’is an emergency response to the problem of displaced Ukrainians and a temporary solution”recalled Éric de Wispelaere, sub-prefect of Draguignan, during a public meeting with the residents of the Chemin de Sainte-Barbe in the parking lot of the Cosec gymnasium.
Work has started
On Wednesday evening, the representative of the State, accompanied by Grégory Loew and Alain Hainaut, both deputy mayors of the town, presented the project to welcome around a hundred displaced Ukrainians, “mostly women and children, and a few old people.”
On the initiative of the State and following a response from the City of Draguignan, containers converted into housing will be installed behind the Cosec gymnasium, on fallow land. “We had to act quickly with the various partners, once the safety studies on the ground, to know if it is floodable, connectable to the waste water or electricity networks, carried out”detailed Arnaud Pouly, head of the Departmental Directorate of Employment, Labor and Solidarity (DDETS), in charge of the project.
Earthworks have already begun. “Once this operation is complete, we will lay concrete pads on which we will mount the modules”explains Michaël Bruel, operations director for Homeblok, in charge of installing the containers. “On July 25 and 26, 77 of them will be delivered and installed in a U-shape on the ground. Another 19 will be delivered in September.”
In the vagueness until then, the residents were very worried about the impact of this construction site in the immediate vicinity of their home.
“Will a screen be installed so that there is no vis-à-vis and everyone has their privacy?”asks one of them. “Will these Ukrainians be framed?”asks another.
“A team of eleven people with a night watchman has been recruited for 24/7 support”wanted to reassure, Lauryne Tollard, director of the Municipal Center for Social Action (CCAS).
The latter will participate with Pôle emploi, National Education and the associative fabric “so that this place of reception is open to the city.”
“Temporary installation”
“The objective is to be able to respond to a need for reception for these displaced persons and to promote their integration in good intelligence”insisted Gregory Loew during the question and answer session.
“How long will it last and can the temporary become permanent?”worries a resident.
“It is an installation that is intended to be temporary for these displaced persons who, once the war is over, are destined to return to Ukraine, but the when does not depend on us and is played out more than 3,000 kilometers from here”concludes Éric de Wispelaere.
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Recent displaced people, a complete integration process
“To ensure that everything goes well, we are going to support these people in their administrative and health procedures”, explains Arnaud Pouly, head of the departmental direction of employment, work and solidarity (DDETS), of the integration project planned on the emergency site under construction. “Once the installation is complete, and the medical follow-up launched for those traumatized by the fighting, the question of integration will be done.”
French lessons will be given to all of the hundred or so people welcomed to the site. “These are refugees who are currently on the road and who will soon arrive in France”, adds Éric de Wispelaere, sub-prefect of Draguignan. “A total of around 2,700 Ukrainians are currently being supported in the department, 900 of them thanks to the generosity of citizens who offered their housing in support.”
“The others are currently housed on seven sites in the department”, specifies Arnaud Pouly, of the DDETS like that of Châteaudouble, within the rural reception center for the elderly (Marpa).
“Once they arrive in August, our teams will work with Pôle Emploi and National Education to send children to school and enable adults to find work,” explains Lauryne Tollard of the CCAS in Draguignan. A process that will be long and intense, because the typology of Ukrainians hosted on the site is not yet known. “We will know more after they have passed through the one-stop shop in Toulon”, indicates the official of the State services. Depending on their age and their level of French, the academic inspection will have to provide a solution, in a context of already overloaded classes.
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