2023-07-08 08:00:00
In the crushing heat of the island of Lesbos, you have to imagine the sound of hammers on scrap metal, that of saws cutting through wood. 2,500 km away, in a former sanatorium located in the heart of Briançon, the same sounds, the same bodies bent over a workbench or a table, soldering iron in hand. A little further south, in a room in the city of Marseille, women knit.
Using his hands, his logic, his knowledge, his ability, his experience to create. And share. In each of these three places, exiles have found the means to build and rebuild themselves thanks to low-tech workshops (simple technical solutions that meet basic needs such as access to energy, water, production and preservation of food…). Learning how to insulate a tent, repair a laptop, make a solar oven or a desert fridge, everything is useful and respectful of our environment. At the origin of these actions, there is a woman supported by a team and volunteers: Marjolaine Bert, 34, at the head of the association Eko!, a structure born in 2018 in Lesbos in the midst of the migration crisis.
In five years, 10,000 people have benefited from solidarity as conceived by Marjolaine Bert, who in her energetic and determined voice affirms: “These exiled people arrive with skills. We do not see them as victims, but as beings with the skills we need. I want to believe in collective intelligence and in this encounter between different worlds. » A word articulates this ambition: enhancement. Value men and women, value their knowledge and experience.
It all seems so simple stated like that. But it takes a hell of a lot of will, courage, perseverance, patience too, to carry out missions like those of Eko!. Do not stop at the first administrative brake or lack of resources. Always believe it. “We are committed to serving a cause. And once you get started, you have a responsibility. We must continue” believes Marjolaine Bert.
THE CLICK
As in any personal destiny, there are founding moments, these stages that push you to act in one direction rather than another. If you listen carefully to Marjolaine Bert, every moment of her life is part of a logic as if this humanitarian commitment were obvious.
Marjolaine Bert has multiplied the missions in particular in Vietnam or even in West Africa, has taken an interest in ecological flatshares, has made a tour of France with Célie Couché to discover all the solutions in this area (tour of France which gave birth to a guide) before meeting in 2018 in Lesbos for a month. “At that time, I discovered low-tech workshops, I wanted to create something. I then returned to the island with the intention of setting up workshops for repairing bicycles, insulating tents and providing access to energy. » A year later, 35 volunteers joined. The sequence of events in Lesbos is complicated: violence against exiles, health crisis due to Covid… You have to hang on to continue the actions of the association, which then receives a prize allowing it to join an incubator for a year. in Marseille. This is the start of actions in Marseille and Briançon.
Briançon is where Marjolaine Bert grew up. “From the top of my 34 years, I can testify to the melting of the glaciers” she specifies. A girl from the mountains, therefore, who from her adolescence develops a political conscience, very quickly militates within Atac 05 and plans her school curriculum in coherence with this commitment.
Preparatory class with a particular interest in economic issues, Sup de Co in Montpellier, specializing in solidarity and sustainable project management, a bachelor’s degree still in the same field and first jobs at Patagonia or at the GERES association in Marseille, a climate NGO.
She also recounts the seeds sown by her parents. She remembers her mother who taught her Esperanto, this family home where we have always welcomed lots of people. And then, traveling, alone at a very young age, an early ecological awareness… All of this contributes to this spirit of solidarity that Marjolaine Bert develops from Lesbos to Briançon in a building bought by several associations. A third place installed in a former six-storey sanatorium renamed “Les terrasses solidaires” and where there are emergency accommodation, a solidarity canteen, an associative café, cultural activities… and the Eko! workshops. “We are the eco-friendly of the place” recognizes Marjolaine with a burst of laughter.
L’ENGAGEMENT
Commitment has been his driving force since his adolescence. However, Marjolaine Bert does not avoid the daily difficulties, those which sometimes make you flinch, discourage. Fortunately, the notion of responsibility always catches up with her quickly. She says and repeats that “Our choices have consequences. Commitment can take different forms. There are plenty of levers to take action. And us, it goes in all directions! “. Accompany the exiles in their steps, allow them to integrate, also get them to talk, to tell their life course strewn with suffering. Like in Marseille, where the knitting workshop has become a moment of confidences for women who are often victims of violence.
When you ask Marjolaine Bert how communication takes place between people of different nationalities, she answers simply: ” We manage. Sometimes gestures and smiles are enough. »
The fact remains that to welcome at best, you need volunteers who themselves have skills. And, above all, time to offer to others. “We are constantly looking for volunteers, but also funds, donations from citizens or private foundations” says Marjolaine Bert.
IN 2050
And after then? How to project yourself when the constraints of everyday life fill your days? Marjolaine Bert admits having difficulty imagining herself in 2050. She knows that leading such a committed personal and professional life will always be her main difficulty. Whether within Eko! or another structure.
For Eko!, the future is full of projects and ambition. Pursue the swarming on the territory, grow the association with the desire to make the low-tech shine even more. Moreover, Marjolaine Bert regularly gives courses in engineering schools, in particular to introduce students to these techniques. Objective: to create bridges between these teachings and Eko!. Maintaining this idea of a virtuous circle, for a solidarity that binds the exiles and the volunteers of the association, and creating a world where everyone contributes to the other. Utopian? Not that much.
By the way, Eko! comes from Esperanto and could be translated as “beginning”, and from the Greek oïkos who gave the words “economy” and “ecology” and meaning “house”.
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