Banque Solidaire de l’Equipement: "building a home after finding shelter"

Equipping one's home is vital to appropriating and building one's household.

Finding a home after many years of searching and waiting is a victory. But how to equip a house without a budget? Emmaüs Défi has come up with an ingenious idea by working with organizations and businesses.

La Banque Solidaire de l’Equipement ("socially-responsible equipment bank") was created in 2012 by Emmaüs Défi to cope with solidarity-related requests.

Numerous individuals turn up at Emmaüs Défi thrift shops with a letter from a social worker of the City of Paris requesting aid to equip their homes with goods of vital necessity. As the quality of the collection process failed to respond to these requests on a consistent basis, Emmaüs Défi created La Banque Solidaire de l'Equipment (BSE) by forming partnerships with businesses based on donations of new equipment. BSE beneficiaries are welcomed in a special area, organized to look like a model apartment, to buy equipment at a modest price that is then delivered to their home.

Donations of small domestic equipment by the Groupe SEB Fund served to equip nearly 7,000 families. In 2016, the Groupe SEB Fund supported the implementation of BSE in Lyon.

Website: https://bse.emmaus-defi.org/