Perrine Junier, young caregiver
In Quebec, the term “be an old soul” refers to a young person, very mature for his or her age, who, thanks to his or her sensitivity and empathy, can put himself or herself in the shoes of others, understand them and help them. It is someone who, as a teenager, has already shown wisdom and humility.
At 18, Perrine Junier was looking for a job. She becomes a caregiver in a nursing home and takes care of people with multiple disabilities. In its establishment she soon realized that she had to learn a whole other way of expressing herself. “We adapt, we adapt our language, we adapt our gestures, because we communicate more with the arms, the look takes all of its importance, the non-verbal in fact takes all of its meaning. And the verbal accompanies what our body says with them” (3’42)
Today, at the age of 22, she is studying nursing at the Red Cross Training Institute in Quetigny. In France, there are nearly 20,000 students taking health and social training from the Red Cross.
In parallel, in October 2018, she became a volunteer in the patrol/roam. “Social patrols are a Red Cross mission in which we go to meet disadvantaged people, homeless people in need to bring them food and especially social bonds. So, during these patrols, we are led to meet many completely different people. They may be young migrants, they may be adults, men, women, who have been on the streets for 5, 10, 20 years, or who have been on the streets for two days and do not know how they got here.” (8’43)
During the Covid-19 crisis, she worked week and weekend. Despite the fatigue, she provided support and became a trainee at a temporary shelter center (CHU) that welcome refugees. “There are usually no nurses in this center. With the arrival of the health crisis, they needed this look of health so that we could put in place preventive measures, help workers, but also people welcomed to respect the good gestures, monitoring of symptoms, whether or not there are people infected, the risks, the people at risk” (12’52)
With Covid-19, the French Red Cross has seen a 20% increase in homelessness in Paris and a 50% increase in Rennes.