A Brief History of the Carrefour and its Board of Directors

The neighbourhood wanted a project that would increase the economic, social and cultural development of Saint-Laurent, as well as local workforce. The provisional Board of Directors first met in July 2001. A request for implementation was sent to the ministère d’État au Travail et à l’Emploi in October 2000, coordinated by the Chamber of Commerce of Saint-Laurent and supported by Jacques P. Dupuis (Saint-Laurent) and Yvan Bordeleau (l’Acadie) and by a number of social and community organizations. In July 2001, the Chamber of Commerce receives a positive reply from the ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité Sociale du Québec, and, on March 18th 2002, the Carrefour jeunesse emploi Saint-Laurent welcomes its first clients.

Thanks to public consultations, community, institutional, government and municipal partners, as well as private companies, the Carrefour targets five different categories of people needing support: immigrants, women from ethno-cultural backgrounds, youth at risk of abandoning school, those with no income and Anglophones living in Saint-Laurent.

The Carrefour jeunesse emploi Saint-Laurent runs under part III of the Loi sur les compagnies du Québec, and is registered since February 23, 2001. The Board of Directors has nine administrators and its goal is to preserve and defend local management, autonomy, local specific needs, accessibility for a wide variety of at-risk clients and the complementary aspect of services. The Board is also responsible for insuring that services and projects provided to youth in the community are adapted to their needs and environment and cooperate with local partners.

The Carrefour jeunesse emploi Saint-Laurent is a member of the Comité des organismes sociaux de Saint-Laurent (COSSL), of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Saint-Laurent, as well as of the Réseau des carrefours jeunesse emploi du Québec (RCJEQ).