Restoring dignity and confidence

Helping the underprivileged with the Samusocial

The Corporate Foundation assists various programmes of the Samusocial de Paris:

La Maison des Femmes, founded in Montrouge by Xavier Emmanuelli, Chairman of the Samusocial, is a long-term structure that provides accommodation for renewable periods of six months. It provides a suitable, reassuring living environment for 14 women, enabling them to become stabilised and reconstruct their lives by escaping from the endless cyle between homelessness and emergency accommodation centres.

The L’Oréal Foundation provides financial support, thus contributing to the overhead of the Maison des Femmes, and organises weekly socio-aesthetics workshops. The socio-aesthetician works on the aspects of hygiene and health prevention in particular. Reintegration into society is approached in several ways, notably by building up a group within which women can talk and discuss issues. Hygiene products are distributed monthly to the residents. In 2009, 46 workshops were organised.

The Foundation also distributed 5,000 "Beauty from the Heart" kits, with products adapted to the victims of social exclusion, in the eight Samusocial de Paris emergency housing centres.

Last but not least, the L’Oréal Foundation contributes to the financing of a major study being carried out by the Samusocial Observatory in the Paris Metropolitan area on 700 people. This study on the "link between daily care and hygiene as a factor in the reintegration of victims of social exclusion into society" will provide a clearer understanding of the habits, practices and needs of socially excluded individuals. The results of the study will be known in 2011.


For more information, please visit www.samusocial-75.fr