What is Pour Nos Aînés

- Anna H.

Pour Nos Aînés is a club that was recently created at school to help old people in nursing homes during the confinement. It is an initiative that aims to share music and concerts by students to the elderly. It has since expanded to other projects to help nursing homes. It was started as a response to the impossibility to do inperson concerts as some students from the school used to do.

For all of you who are interested in knowing more about this club, its founder, Tamara B., has accepted to help explain what this club really is.

What is your club’s mission?

Pour Nos Aînés' mission is to bring more joy into the lives of the elderly and put a smile on their faces especially during these difficult times of COVID-19 where it was impossible and now very difficult to see their family or friends.

How was it created?

Before the confinement, I performed in EHPADs for the residents in concerts organised by the amazing Pascale Blachez, a mother at EJM. When the pandemic hit, we couldn’t see them anymore and I thought that it must be very difficult for them. I contacted Pascale and asked if I could help and she was thinking about collecting videos and then making a “Confinement Concert” for the elderly to continue the project. I thought that it might be helpful to have one place to put everything for the elderly on, and so created the website pournosaines.com. From there, Pascale sent me her fantastic compilations, in which both I and her feature, performing with our families, and we made a form where people could send videos (giving their “droit à l’image”). We were thrilled at how many people replied and sent us wonderful contributions and would like to give a huge THANK YOU to all those people. We received videos from our school EJM, the very musical school l’Ecole Alsacienne, the choir Sotto Voce that I was a part of and many other places, amounting to over 100 videos! We spread the project from music, which is a core aspect of Pour Nos Aînés', to also collecting letters, poems, drawings, photos and messages as well. We contacted EHPAD companies, and managed to reach the head of communications at Korian, a company with 800 EHPADs. It is thanks to her and Pascale’s tireless calling of EHPADs personally that the link of the website was shared all over France and we reached EHPADs in Normandy, Clermont-Ferrand, Bretagne, Marseille, the South of France and countless other places. I was given the opportunity to present this initiative by Madame Laure Zéboulon which featured in the EJM video sent to the school at the end of the year, and also performed the song “Y a de la joie” that I sang for the elderly, changing the lyrics for them. There is so much that can be done for the elderly and so this year, I created the club Pour Nos Aînés at school where we all work on helping the elderly together, because teamwork makes the dream work!

We made the Operation Saint Valentin where our Team held a rose bake sale- selling roses we had bought from the great fleuriste Boule de Neige next to school who gave our Team a formation on how to package them, giving us behind the scenes experience and sharing his craft with us. We sold them all, and using all of the profit,

we bought another batch of roses which we packaged them and put the names of each resident and brought it to the EHPAD de l’Orme in person along with personalised messages of support and encour-

agement we had collected during the bake sale and letters to the residents from EJM students. I would also like to give a huge thank you to the fabulous animatrice Sandrine who was in contact with us along the way, and we were so surprised and touched when their EHPAD gave us chocolates as a thank you!

What projects are you currently working on?

We are currently working on our “Projet Anniversaires” where we collect videos of students singing Happy Birthday to the residents. We then send a compilation of these videos with a personalised message to each of the residents at the beginning to over a dozen EHPADs who keep on asking us for more since the Retirement Homes have so many birthdays each month, including very special 100 year birthdays! If you would like to share your own, please send it to contact@pournosaines.com. We also have a “Projet Technologie” up our sleeve: Sandrine told us that the residents had received tablets for Christmas in order to contact their loved ones during the confinement yet that they couldn’t use them and would love to master these three things: photos, searching on Google/Youtube and using Email. Therefore, we will hold a virtual course on Zoom where we help them use them and have a one-on-one student-resident relationship so that each resident can have personalised attention. We will then follow up by sending them posters to clearly explain how to use what we will have gone over so that they can easily check in case they forget.

Another project we are planning is “Operation Muguet” which is essentially the same thing as Operation Saint Valentin, just with muguets instead of roses.

What are some future projects you may have? What is your aim in terms of expansions and recruiting?

I was recently contacted through our website by an EHPAD in Clermont-Ferrand who was requesting more virtual concerts and we are regularly contacted by EHPADs with requests for live concerts in their patios and from a very controlled, COVID safe area. We have already organised and performed in EHPADs from their courtyards so that the residents can listen from their windows and we hope to do so again very soon! Our vision is to continue what we are doing, organise live concerts once again and spread to multiple schools so that we can have the biggest positive impact we have and create a partnership “1Ecole1EHPAD” between schools and Retirement Homes so that each EHPAD can benefit from connecting with today’s youth and have this invaluable intergenerational link, creating a long-lasting relationship between the two.

If you are interested in joining Pour Nos Aînés, send us an email at: contact@pournosaines.com and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: @pournosaines

This initiative is truly fabulous and I hope this touching and sincere example of altruism can be an inspiration to all of us.

A special thanks to Tamara B. for her help and her participation.