The Mémères du Moulin project involves settign up group accommodation in the commune of Incourt for retired fit women and also younger women with or without children.


It consists of two elements: housing and association.

Housing:

The team of members aims at building ten flats of 60m2 for rent. The flats contain a bedroom, bathroom kitchen and living-room.
The plans for the building were drawn up by Mr Axel Bedoret of the Atelier du Champ Sainte-Anne (ASCA) architects bureau at Ottignies-Belgium.

An estimate by the Maison Compère building company allowed us to assess the cost of the project.
A series of discussions with the Commune authorities of Incourt will bring about the grant of building permission necessary for starting the project.

the project will be sustainable with ecological building, the green swards will be maintained without plant-health products, and an electric car will be placed at the members’s disposal.

The shared rooms.
Tenants share the space outside: garden, vegetable garden and future ecological pool.

They thus enjoy their private accommodation and certain joint facilities, both outside and inside, as they wish, to breal the isolation which their situation as single women implies.

Association:

The Mémères du Moulin was set up in 2015. The statutes were signed on 15 August and published in the Moniteur belge on 15 September 2015.
The project is entirely in private hands: a mother and three of her four sons. Isabelle is chairman, Hugues, the eldest son, was vice-chairman, Thomas was secretary and Geoffroy was treasurer. It has a local base, with two or three village residents to reinforce the structure. These are not always the same.
A financial/running plan was drafted at the outset and ha been constantly updated since.

The team’s objective is to enable the residents to organise, as a group, activities such as cooking, gymnastics, harvesting and preparing mushrooms and carrying out research into the needs of older people. The building hopes to beam out nationally and internationally on these topics.
The commune of Incourt already offers a series of activities, so it would be appropriate to act in partnership with the organisers. No service is provided and the proper functioning of the group requires mutual cooperation. The youngest (between 60 and 70) who are the most vigourous will help their older friends (between 70 and 80) who have less steam. The pooling of certain advantages and some efforts will benefit each inhabitant.

Management meetings and annual general meetings are organised regularly, with an agenda and subsequent minutes.
Each meeting is organised with a meal together, to commence around 18h30. It is organised on a self-help basis, foreshadows the future monthly meal of the Mémères and constitutes a window open to the world.