The association Amis de Jeudi Dimanche announced the death of Michel Jaouen, better known as Father Jaouen, with the following message "Father Michel JAOUEN has just passed away peacefully today, Monday, March 7, 2016. We were at his bedside to accompany him on his last journey."
Michel Jaouen was born in Ushant on 6 October 1920 to a doctor's father, he grew up in Finistère, in the small village of Kerlouan. At the age of 19, he entered the Jesuit seminary. During the Second World War, he tried to escape to England with his two brothers, but failed. He then joined the resistance under the name of Jean Le C?ur.
Ordained a priest in 1951, he created the AJD - Chaplaincy of Delinquent Youth - which has since become the Association of Friends of Thursday Sundays since then, whose aim is to broaden the horizons of young people released from prison, by helping them to reintegrate. He then became chaplain in Fresnes and served there for 13 years. Seeing the sea as a means of reintegration, Father Jaouen set up a base in Landéda, in Finistère, on the dune opposite the entrance to the Aber-Wrach in 1954.
Beautiful Hope
In Paris, he built the foyer des Épinettes to welcome those who came out of prison, and to create a uniqueness and a mixture of genres, by bringing together different typologies of people.
In 1968, he then bought with Father Alain Maucorps, the Bel-Espoir, a three-masted schooner, on board which he took offenders and drug addicts to sail, and crewed conscripts for military service. The aim is to give them a taste for life again by making them feel the freedom that the sea offers, but at the same time this necessary discipline on board. Everyone is free to come aboard the boat, always with the idea of group cohesion in mind. The fleet expanded with Rara-Avis in 1973. At the same time, the Landéda base also serves as a rehabilitation site, introducing young people to the trades of carpenter and marine carpenter.
Rara-Avis
Thanks to its reintegration programme located in Finistère, 15,000 young people boarded one of the fleet's vessels: the Bel-Espoir I, the Bel Espoir II or the Rara-Avis. There are many destinations: Cape Verde, transatlantic, Caribbean, Reunion Island... and on board, everyone is getting involved, after having freed themselves from the same boarding fees.
