Emmaus Sheffield Information

Emmaus was founded in Paris in 1949 by Father Henri-Antoine Groues, better known as the Abbé Pierre (pictured right), a Catholic priest and MP. During the Second World War he had been a member of the French Resistance; after the war had finished he began to fight for the rights of those who found themselves homeless. One night, a man called Georges was brought to the Abbé Pierre. Homeless and despairing, he had tried to commit suicide in the Seine. The Abbé Pierre did not just offer him a place to sleep. He asked for his help. He told Georges of the homeless men and women who came to him for help and how he could not cope with the problem on his own. Could Georges join him in his mission to help them? Georges became the first Emmaus Companion, living with the Abbé Pierre and helping him to build temporary homes for those in need. He later said:'Whatever else he might have given me - money, home, somewhere to work - I'd have still tried to kill myself again. What I was missing, and what he offered, was something to live for'. In 1951, Abbé Pierre resigned as an MP. He no longer had a salary to support 18 men who now formed the first Community and were still building homes for those who desperately needed them. To raise the money they needed, the men became 'rag pickers', taking things that people no longer wanted and selling them on. So the concept of Companions running self-supporting businesses, with the profits going to those in greater need was born.