« Pas un an de plus », le cri d’alarme des étudiants face à la précarité
Next to “the little Basque house with tags near the Peixotto stop” – the nickname of their headquarters – the students have set up a solidarity grocery store in a prefab: the Comptoir Aliénor. “It has been open since 2017 and is welcoming more and more people”, testifies Hugo Lopes, president of Atena. The year 2021-2022 broke all records, with 240 on social criteria.
Atena also distributes baskets with the Food Bank and the University of Bordeaux. “There are big food needs. After the Covid, inflation. We ourselves are struggling to supply the grocery store”.
And precariousness is not only manifested by hunger. “Isolation also plays an important part, adds Simon Terekhov, vice-president of the Federation of General Student Associations (Fage). “This particularly affects international students. They are more than 50% of the public in our grocery stores, because they do not have Crous aid for the first two years. »
Who is entitled to what? The maquis of available aid and the jungle of their allocation aggravates student precariousness. “For example, health and social training must ask for aid from the Region, not from the Crous, illustrates Hugo Lopes. We try to remedy this with our guide to social assistance and our defense of rights counters. Atena asks that everything be centralized by the Crous, in a sort of “one-stop shop”.
Another claim: the overhaul of the specific study regimes (RSE), in order to offer better conditions to students forced to work to subsist.
Grocery: 351 Cours de la Liberation. 4-7 p.m., Monday to Thursday. 2-5 p.m., Friday.