Emmaüs: Communities Built by and for the Excluded

Emmaüs began in November 1949 when French priest Abbé Pierre and a formerly homeless man, Georges Legay, started building shelter for people sleeping rough near Paris. Local Emmaüs communities fund themselves by collecting, repairing and reselling donated goods, using the income to house and employ people who have experienced homelessness or poverty. The movement spread internationally within Abbé Pierre's lifetime and, coordinated since 1971 by Emmaüs International, today groups hundreds of communities and organisations across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.