Our commitments
We have tried to organise every year since 2005 training sessions for parents with disabled children to teach them how to pilot a Tamdenski. Our aim is to fulfil the dream of children and youth to discover or rediscover the pleasure of skiing and also to allow families to practice mountain activities with their children. But it is difficult for a family to finance this type of project, a training session organised by the French Association for Paralytics (APF) costs about 2.400 euros.
Our project consists in organising a session for about 10 people: the budget of about 15.000 euros includes the teaching material used in the training, the ski pass, the paying off of the adaptive equipment and the administrative cost linked to the organisation of the training. This training to pilot a Tandemski takes place over 10 days divided in 2 compulsory periods of 5 days (at the end of December and the beginning of January). The parents will only have to pay for their accommodation, catering and transport and take days off at work.
We look for partners every year to finance this project which is of interest for a lot of parents. There is a waiting list every year to attend this training and many parents have to wait for the training session taking place the year after.
Since 2012, we have been offering elderly people living in different nursing homes in the department and more specifically in the Pays du Mont-Blanc to practice Tandemski in winter and Cimgo in summer.
These moments of freedom bring a breath of fresh air, consideration and meeting opportunities to people whose mobility is reduced and who sometimes feel isolated.
A lot of institutions looking after young people with disabilities or special educational needs wish to organise holidays to practice adaptive outdoor pursuits but the financial cost of the activities, accommodation, catering and transport makes the implementation of their project impossible.
This is why with the help of our partners, we wish to take responsibility for the financial aspect of the outdoor mountain activities that could be carried out during the stays in order to bring their projects to fruition.
Several structures looking after youths with a disability such as EREA (Regional Institute for Special Needs Education), IEM (Institute for Motor Education) … had the opportunity to organise stays in the Pays du Mont-Blanc to practice adaptive skiing in the winter, hiking, rope park, paragliding and rafting in the summer. This was made possible because we took over about 80% of the cost of the stays.
The creation of the accessibility commissions of the Pays du Mont-Blanc has its origin in our solicitation of local elected representatives notably representatives from Chamonix, Megève, Saint Gervais, Sallanches and Passy. In the same way, we asked Mr Pellex, the former president of the district of Pays du Mont-Blanc (Communauté de Communes du Pays du Mont-Blanc), to create an accessibility commission between local councils.
We intervene voluntarily in the accessibility commissions of different towns and advise them on specific projects: for instance, how to make accessible the town hall, the street network and the ice rink in Demi-Quartier, the town hall in Saint-Gervais, the street network in Praz-sur-Arly, the H,B de Saussure High school in Combloux, the street network in Sallanches and in Les Houches on request of the mayor.
We have also participated voluntarily in the elaboration of the sustainable development charter of 3 towns– Praz-sur-Arly, Combloux and Cordon. The charter proposes a constituent elaborated within the framework of a contract signed with the Region. We participated to about a dozen meetings to elaborate the setting up of this charter.
We have been looking for partners offering outdoor mountain activities in the Pays du Mont-Blanc that could complement our own activities and could be adapted to disabled people, for instance, rafting.
So we propose these activities and when required accompany the groups or individual people to our partners till the activity begins. This allows a better transmission of the information concerning the group, the different disabilities and the possible adaptations needed. We do this for free as our engagement is also to make relationship easier thanks to an adapted caring.
Every year, we lend individual people different types of adaptive equipment such as sit-skis in winter in Combloux and joélettes in the summer. This loan is free we only require a deposit for the material.
Most people who benefit from these loans for free make donations to our association which are used to buy new parts or renew our equipment.
We also lend adaptive equipment to some associations or adapted structures. For instance, we lent 3 Cimgos to a Belgian association two years in a row. We also signed a convention with the city of Lourdes to lend them a Cimgo to develop this activity at Le Pic de Jers in the Pyrenees.
The equipment we do not use off season is lent to associations in other regions. For instance, for two winters in a row we lent for free our summer equipment F.T.T. mountain wheelchairs, Cimgo and trailer to the C.S.J.C (Sport Centre for Young Corsican / formerly called the CREPS of Ajaccio).
This is an important loan as a Cimgo costs about 10.000 euros and a F.T.T. mountain wheelchair about 8.000 euros.
We also lend Joélettes for free to parents and associations who ask us.
We also lend 2 Hippocampes to the towns of Passy and Combloux to make their lakes and water activities accessible in summer and to make their hiking trails accessible in winter.
For several years, we have been lending 2 hockey sleds to the ice rink of Saint-Gervais and Megève.
We also lend Tandemskis and Cimgos to the APEI du Mont-Blanc and to “A chacun son Everest” for their outings in the mountain.
Our mission is to make outdoor mountain activities accessible to all, this is why we lend our equipment for free to individual people under conditions.
We also worked on conceiving equipment adapted to people whose disabilities prevented them from practising certain activities.
We often worked with professionals in our association to answer the needs of adaptive equipment for disabled people. We worked on specifications, relations with manufacturers, fund raising, prototype trials, outdoor practice and then training people to pilot the equipment.
We intervene and invest within the framework of the law concerning accessibility dated 11/02/2005. Our mission is to make the mountain accessible to all and making ski lifts, chair-lifts… accessible is a priority. Since the 2000s we have been working on the specific issue of accessibility of ski lifts and ski resorts. We have participated voluntarily to several meetings in Bonneville on how to make ski resorts accessible. These meetings concerning accessibility of ski resorts gathered representatives of state services, S.T.R.M.T.G. (Technical services of ski lifts and guided transports), M. Martial Saddier Mayor and Elected Deputy for Bonneville and Domaine Skiable de France.
We also make lift operation companies (POMA, LEITNER, DOPPLEMAYR…) more aware of the accessibility of ski lifts, chair-lifts and gondolas. We worked with the D.D.E. (Direction Départementale de l’Equipement) and Mr René Berthoux, who is now retired, on the accessibility of the telecabine of Les Houches, the one in Plan Praz and in La Clusaz…
We also voluntarily increase ski lift operators’ awareness of accessibility by showing them how to evacuate different adaptive skiing equipment from their ski lifts and chair-lifts (Chamonix Compagnies du Mont-Blanc, Combloux, Auron).
We also paid a professional to shoot a film on how to organise the evacuation of adaptive skiing equipment from ski lifts and chair-lifts. The film footage of the evacuation technics is given for free to winter sport resorts and ski lifts operators in the area.
