Non profit

SIEL Bleu

Non Profit ID card. SIEL Bleu, one of the winners of the first European social innovation competition

di Cristina Barbetta

Non Profit ID card: present your project/organisation/campaign

Questions answered by Guillaume Lefebvre, Development Manager, SIEL Bleu.

Where are you based? Strasbourg, France.

– What are you called? SIEL Bleu.    

– What are you doing and why? SIEL Bleu offers a life-long anti ageing course that uses a simple and concrete tool: the Adapted Physical Activity (APA). Our APA programmes aim to prevent or to reduce ageing effects, to recreate social relationships and to stimulate personal and collective fulfilment.

Do you have a website? www.sielbleu.org.

What makes you so special? SIEL Bleu offers practical solutions on the field, that promote active ageing, to help dependent people, affected by chronic diseases. SIEL Bleu, that has been pioneer in promoting the benefits of the adapted physical activity (APA), participates to the awareness of the preventive virtues of the APA to health practitioners.     

 

The turning point

– How did you start? SIEL Bleu was founded in 1997, when its two founders, Jean Daniel Muller and Jean Michel Ricard, became aware of the lack of solutions for elderly people and of the benefits that physical activity can bring to them.  

– What keeps you going every day? Being into contact with beneficiaries observing their improvements, giving them the means to be more independent, relaxing with them, seeing them smile… 

– Who is your target? SIEL Bleu is for vulnerable people, for whom physical activity can improve or maintain their independence and give moments of well-being. It is also for the elderly, for workers and for people suffering from chronic diseases.

– How are you financed? Through donations, thanks to a commercial subsidiary, that is run by our non profit association, and through the creation of innovative partnerships with health practitioners. SIEL Bleu aims to innovate by finding new funding sources in order to make its programmes accessible to everyone without the cost being a restraint.

 

The challenge

– A proud moment? Seeing our actions recognized more and more at the European level by health practitioners and health insurance companies. 

– A problem you face? The concept of physical activity as a preventive tool is still not well known.

Your personal motto when things get hard? “Everyone said it was impossible, until someone came by who didn’t know that!”. Epictetus.

www.sielbleu.org

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