Summary
Supportive, useful and effective
We have been working for years with companies in the social economy and the adapted sector, such as Ateliers sans Frontières and ATF Gaia.
Ateliers sans Frontières
This is a social integration project specialising in the reuse and recycling of WEEE, which takes in more than 110 vulnerable young people and adults each year, helping them to build a stable and dignified life. Today, Econocom and ASF process 60,000 devices a year with a team of 15 people. Since 2011, 30 jobs have been created at ASF and more than 100 people have received training and found outside employment thanks to this supportive and sustainable partnership, whose impact is real and measurable.
ATF Gaia
A disability-friendly company: another example of a successful long-term partnership. We've been working together for over 15 years. A disability-friendly company must employ more than 55% of people with disabilities. The figure is 68% for ATF Gaia. The company's 81 employees are involved in buying back hardware, refurbishing, resale and recycling. Other services are also being strengthened, such as data or hardware processing and security, inventories or migrations, configuration and or on-site installations.
Re Tech Life Onlus in Italy
At the international level, we’re also working in a spirit of solidarity on refurbishing: BDF Italy, one of the Group's companies, has a long-standing and solid partnership with Re Tech Life Onlus, an organisation which provides training in IT refurbishing and recycling for people who are far removed from employment. This collaboration with BDF generates work for three people.
Supporting emancipation
In 2022 and 2023, we donated more than 900 refurbished computers to trusted organisations, mainly to combat the digital divide.
Some of these initiatives have been initiated by the company, while others have been carried out by individuals working on local community projects. Here are a few examples:
Computers for integration
Together with 4 of our customers, including EdF, we organised the donation of more than 500 computers to Emmaüs Connect. The aim was to help refugee families (some from the Ukraine) to take online training courses so that they could work. This hardware was upgraded by Ateliers Sans Frontières and its rapid availability had an immediate impact. This is further proof of our responsiveness to the social economy.
Operations were carried out with our customer Spirax Sarco Italy to donate hardware to various humanitarian associations working for children, vulnerable people and refugees
Breaking down barriers to support education
ZUPdeCO has been reducing academic failure since 2005, providing tutoring to 35,000 pupils this year, with more than 80 partner colleges and 20,000 volunteers. ZUPs (Zones à Urbaniser en Priorité - Priority Zones to be Urbanised) date back to the 1960s, and although they are now highly urbanised, they remain disadvantaged.
To make equal access to education a reality for as many people as possible, this year we donated 60 machines to this association which promotes online tutoring and knows how to deal with logistical difficulties and frequent cultural barriers.
Civic sponsorship
We support a number of causes which are important to us, through digital devices or financial support.
Démos France
Démos offers classical music lessons to children aged 7 to 12 who don’t have access to instruments or music conservatories, often in rural or outlying areas. Almost 10,000 children and over 50 orchestras have benefited from the scheme since 2010,. Econocom has been a patron of the Démos project since 2012 and supports the digital system.
Espérances Banlieues (France)
Espérances Banlieues (Suburban Spaces) works on access to education and culture. We have been working alongside them for the past 3 years with significant donations of computers.
As well as supplying hardware, we also run educational workshops on learning to code for educators. Espérance Banlieues has teamed up with COLORI to train its pupils in digital technology without screens. Econocom helped train 7 teachers to deploy COLORI in schools in Reims, Poissy, Saint-Etienne and Roubaix.
Between 2022 and 2023, 84 students benefited from the training, with 14 hours of training followed by the teachers.
Televie (Belgium)
The aim of this initiative is to raise funds for research into childhood and adult cancer and leukaemia. It has been run by the RTL-TVI group in French-speaking Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg since 1989. Since its creation, Télévie has funded some 3,000 scientists and 2,700 research projects. These results are the fruit of the ongoing efforts of tens of thousands of people and the support of our partners.
As logistical support for the association, Econocom Belux has equipped the donation pledge centre every year since 2011: every year, around ten employees install around 200 refurbished computers for a weekend. Econocom provides technical support throughout the event.
