Located in an 18th-century former mill in the heart of the regional natural park, surrounded by water and greenery, the Moulin de Pont Rû is Alan Caillaud's legacy, but also where he grew up.
It was the meeting with Nathalie, the co-founder who was already working with the Femmes debout association in Dôle, Jura, that marked the creation of this project. “We initially set up a company that supported personal development through events and trips,” recounts Alan Caillaud.
But a place that allows women to truly settle down and thus put down their baggage resonated particularly with him. Initially, the goal was to support young refugee women who found themselves in situations of great fragility, a 18-month program where they were provided with food and housing, benefiting from French and computer classes, along with assistance for professional and housing integration.
Today, the support is also open to children and adolescents, during a very intense week filled with workshops to work on concepts of self-confidence, self-esteem, and stress management. “We will work with breathing, meditation, and sophrology,” explains Alan Caillaud. “We will do socio-aesthetics, socio-hairdressing, coaching; and a lot of work also through a play performed during the week and a show on Thursday evening. We will also focus on better eating with a vegetarian and organic diet, thanks to our own production on site.”
For the co-founder, it is indeed essential to get hands back in the soil, to reconnect with the living. “This is part of the path to wonder.”
To date, the Moulin de Pont Rû association has recorded 94 stays and a little over 1200 women supported. “And each time, what they tell us is, you have given us back this joy of living, this wonder, this desire to live,” marvels Alan Caillaud. “There is a real evolution in the journeys of these people, these women, these children, moving towards a re-mobilization, where they regain the confidence they had before these vulnerable situations they encountered and may still encounter, but which can now be approached from a different angle. Our lives are strewn with obstacles. It’s just that, if we are given some tools, we might be able to approach them differently.”
