Meet Clara !
Volunteer at Compagnons Bâtisseurs France, in Paris.
While being a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps in Paris, Clara put in place her own initiative of solidarity. She created “Mon logement mon identité” a photojournalistic project presenting ten homes and ten life stories.
What does our home say about our daily lives, about our values, about who we are ?
This photography project aim was to provide a look at the identity of some inhabitants of Bobigny, a town in the suburbs of Paris that Clara discovered during her volunteering with Compagnons Bâtisseurs. “It pushed me to know and show more about who were the people we were helping in Bobigny (…) from the outside we can only see numbers of works or activities, and we need to keep in mind the human factor of this mission.“
The aim of her project was to tell something important for each of the inhabitants, always linked to their apartment and their neighborhood, to reindicate the weight of home in daily life. Through a small interview at their home, we discover some memories, routines or values, which are reflected in the photograph with an object of their choice and an interview. “When we talk about identity, we often forget to refer to concrete things. However, it is not uncommon to consider in our home a fairly intimate place that we reserve for family and friends. Home is something we build, a place of protection, the one we miss when we are far away. Our objects also keep stories, testifying to our memories, our desires, our priorities and our nostalgia. Can an apartment talk about its tenant? In my opinion, yes.”
This project was created between Bobigny and Paris starting on November 2023 and carrying on until summer 2024 and resulted in a book and two exhibitions accessible to the protagonists, their neighbors and other interested Balbynians and Parisians.
“I believe I’m more sensitive now to other cultures and traditions and how to approach them in a respectful way. I also learnt about how to develop an idea from scratch, asking for financial support or looking for possibilities and steps.“
This initiative was supported along the CLIC project. C.L.I.C. for “Coordinating Locally in order to Increase More Changes with the European solidarity Corps” is a cooperation partnership we participate in with 9 other like-minded organisations from 9 European countries. Together, we want to increase the impact and the visibility of the European Solidarity Corps in our communities, while providing young people with a strong educational value along their volunteering projects.