| Jávea Grapevine February 2015
The
History of
EMAÙS
The first Emmaus Community
was founded in Paris in 1949 by
Father Henri-Antoine Groues,
better known as the Abbé Pierre,
a Catholic priest, MP and former
member of the French Resistance
during the Second World War. As
an MP, he had fought to provide
homes for those who lived on the
streets of Paris.
Thirty six years ago, in 1979,
Francisco Nadal founded the first
EMAÚS Association in Spain at
Altea, having been inspired by the
work of Abbé Piérre in France.
Francisco Nadal came back
to Altea from France with a
group of homeless teenagers
and renovated his Family’s old
Finca for them to live in. From a
small workshop, helping teenage
children with problems, EMAÚS
has grown into a large Registered
Charitable Organisation that now
has several branches across
the Costa Blanca area dealing
with, and co-ordinating, problems
concerning families, their children
and their elderly relatives.
EMAÚS Today
Read All About Friends
Of The Children Of
EMAUS on their two
Facebook pages and on
their website,
www.fcemaus.com.
For General Information
about Friends Of The
Children Of EMAUS, to
renew your Membership
or to become a Friend
please contact:
[email protected].
One night, a man called Georges
was brought to the Abbé Pierre.
Georges had been released after
20 years in prison, only to find
his family unable to cope with his
reappearance. Homeless and
despairing, he had tried to commit
suicide in the Seine. The Abbé
Pierre did not just offer him a place
to sleep, he asked for his help.
He told Georges of the homeless
mothers who came to him for help
for them and their children and how
he could not cope with the problem
on his own. Could Georges join
him in his mission to help them?
Georges became the first Emmaus
Companion, living with the Abbé
Pierre and helping him to build
temporary homes for those in
need, first in the priest’s own
garden, then wherever land could
be bought or scrounged.
He later said; “Whatever else he
might have given me - money,
home, somewhere to work - I’d
have still tried to kill myself again.
What I was missing, and what he
offered, was something to live for.”
Abbé Pierre’s philosophy spread
around
the
world,
to-date
encompassing 36 countries.
At present EMAÚS are running 9
Children’s Shelters on the Costa
Blanca which have around 100
children living in them with an age
group ranging from 2 to 18.
There is also a shelter for disabled
young people, two Residencias for
the Third Age, and an emergency
help-line in Altea for the elderly
living on their own; occupational
workshops for the teenage
children; a counselling service for
families with problematic children;
and a Shelter for women who have
come out of violent relationship. In
Novem &W"#