a solidarity grocery store opens its doors at Toulouse 1 Capitole University
To fight against student precariousness, the Food Bank of Toulouse and the University of Toulouse 1 opened, on February 18, a solidarity grocery store on the Capitole campus. A hundred students are expected there every day.
The place was necessary to counter student precariousness. Open to all Toulouse students who need it, including those enrolled in other universities, the solidarity grocery store is supplied by the Toulouse Food Bank.
In 2020-2021, 36.2% of the 22,400 enrolled at Capitol University were scholarship recipients. A figure slightly lower than the national average (37.5%) but which is not enough to measure the extent of the phenomenon. Because of all students in France, half say they have restricted themselves in 2021… And 20% live below the poverty line according to INSEE.
A student at Paul-Sabatier University, Marie* falls into this category. She survives and makes do with the bare minimum: “after paying my rent and my utilities, I have 40 euros left per month for shopping, 50 when I’m lucky“, she believes.
For a few months, she accumulated two student jobs to get by: a job of “extra waitress” and “a bit of sales activity in the supermarket at the weekend.“But the Covid-19 has been there and with it, the closure of restaurants, and the loss of his main job. “I have only just found a job. But I transferred so much overdrafts and borrowed so much from my family that it will take me a while to get my head out of the water.“, she admits.
So the solidarity grocery store, she intends to go there. And has already wanted others in the past: “it’s easier, psychologically, than the Restos du Coeur, where I’ve never dared to go… And it allows you to eat something other than pasta and rice!“
The small name of this new service: the UT1 ESOPE grocery store. Created in partnership with the Toulouse Food Bank and regional and departmental institutions, it will allow 100 students per week, according to the University of Toulouse 1, “to refuel to continue studying in favorable conditions“.
Foodstuffs (meat, fruit and vegetables, frozen foods, preserves) and hygiene products used”agricultural and agri-food sectors” and mass distribution, further specifies the university. They are sold at prices ranging from “10-30% of market value” some products.
According to the president of the Toulouse Capitole University, Hugues Kenfack, nearly 13,000 students, all universities combined, would face precariousness in Toulouse.
Grocery UT1 ESOPE, 2T Rue des Puits Dug, 31000 Toulouse
Open Wednesday and Thursday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. – information and filing of applications on the grocery store website.
*The first name has been changed at the request of the student