People with mental disabilities are twice as likely to be jobless. That is why Café Joyeux has employed and trained people with mental disabilities in the restaurant business since 2017. Its success is growing.

Creating mainstream jobs

In France, 700,000 people have autism and 65,000 have Down’s syndrome. With no vocational training, many are unemployed and isolated. Just 0.5% have mainstream jobs.

This alarming situation prompted the Emeraude Solidaire endowment fund to create "Grain de Moutarde", a social enterprise that develops the Café Joyeux network of cafe-restaurants. It puts people with mental and cognitive disabilities to work and trains them in the restaurant business. In 2020, 20 people with disabilities were trained.

Building a more inclusive society

Café Joyeux is helping to change the way people with mental disabilities are viewed in order to create a more inclusive society. The organization runs cafe-restaurants in Paris, Rennes and Bordeaux and plans to create new ones across France. The result will be hundreds of jobs and catering industry training for people with cognitive disabilities. Café Joyeux has an ambitious, praiseworthy goal: creating jobs in ordinary settings.

The foundation’s support

The Bettencourt Schueller Foundation supports the opening of new "happy cafes" because it shares the project’s values. These successful models of inclusiveness mainstream people with cognitive disabilities into the working world and offer them training.

Grants for solidarity

Promoting a society in which everyone finds their place.

See all projects in the field of Solidarity