I was lucky to find Monsieur Barré, the man in charge of the Cannes group of Amnesty International. I first got in touch with him in February after a long chain of referrals...
Anyways, today I went to the beautiful Lycée Carnot in a part of Cannes I hadn’t had the privilege of knowing. It was less touristy than downtown and more urban that La Bocca. [I will later describe the part of town where I’m staying!].
M. Barré was at that school to recruit young students to the group; he had a table set up with lots of colorful flyers and pamphlets. When I saw him, I couldn’t believe it was him - I had imagined him completely different. I mean, we had been emailing back and forth attempting to set up meeting times, and he always had a courteous and energetic attitude, and he obviously was a tech savvy. I guess I never imagined him to be around 60 years old!
Anyways, I started my interview – question sheet on my lap, voice recorder in one hand, pen in the other… was it obvious that I was an amateur in this?
With a slurred French and a substantial amount of concentration, I managed to have a very successful interview. And I might say that I was surprised with the results. I don’t want to reveal all my research before writing the actual report, but I must mention what impacted me the most: according to M. Barré, Cannes is not the rich city it seems; its numerous poverty problems are hidden behind a great curtain of glamour.
Definitely not what I expected. I wanted to hear that Hollywood celebrities (perhaps Brangelina), whenever they visit Cannes, donate huge amounts of money to Amnesty International’s cause. I guess that's not the case. Actually, the Cannes group is experiencing serious financial troubles, which, to me, is a shame.
Another shame was that no one at the lycée joined Amnesty this afternoon...
On a more positive tone, the polite M. Barré invited me to attend a group meeting on June 10th.
I am looking forward to it.
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