Who we are ?

The main mission of Loisirs Assis Evasion

Our main objective is to allow a very wide range of people with a physical disability or requiring special educational needs to practice outdoor mountain activities supervised by specialists in adaptive skiing --standing or seated-- Monoski, Tandemski, Skikart , mountain wheelchair,”Joëlette”, “Cimgo”,paragliding,  rope park, climbing …

Our aim is to favour socialising and personal development and to provide disabled people and people with special needs with activities in an environment which has long been inaccessible to them.

Our specificity

All our activities are supervised by state qualified professional instructors and professionals who have a specific qualification in looking after and accompanying disabled people.

We keep improving our equipment and the activities we offer to make them suitable to any type of disability.

At Loisirs Assis Evasion not only are we concerned with accompanying disabled people in a mountain activity but also with granting them maximum ease – considering the specificity of the disability and its constraints, adapting the equipment, ensuring transport if necessary, giving confidence to the person, making families and accompanying personnel at ease…

Loisirs Assis Evasion is a non-profitmaking organisation. The rate of the activities is calculated to be the fairest for disabled people.
 

On top of organising mountain activities Loisirs Assis evasion also devotes energies to improve accessibility for disabled people by working with regional authorities (town and department councils) but also with companies involved in mountain equipment (ski lift operators most notably).

Thanks to our sponsors we can undertake voluntary actions aimed at parents of disabled children, young people living in specialist structures (IME, IEM, EREA …) and elderly people living in retirement or nursing homes.
 

Among these voluntary actions we can mention:

- The training of parents to the use of the adaptive skiing equipment (since 2009) thanks to the help of several partners

- The development of partnerships to put our equipment at the disposal of other associations, for instance by lending every winter our Cimgos and mountain wheelchairs to an association in Ajaccio (Corsica).

We also lend our equipment to individuals under certain conditions.

History of the Association

Yves MATHELIN was a skiing instructor, mountain guide and first aid worker for the Chamonix High Mountain Police Force Platoon. In 1989, he had an accident and lost the use of his legs and decided to create the first adaptive seated skiing structure supervised by professionals. The association Ski Assis Evasion was launched in 1994 and Yves Mathelin became its first president.

In 2000, Frédéric Bouniol took over the management of the association in collaboration with Lionel Mailly and Dominique Desbenoit. In 2014, the association decided to restructure so as to evolve and better answer the growing demands and wider activities of the association.

Currently the association now called Loisirs Assis Evasion proposes different winter and summer activities supervised by a team of professional instructors.

The Board of Directors

 The board of directors (27 april 2023) :

• President                    Jérémie    MARICOT          (Until 2025)

• Vice Presidente           Régine      GARNIER          (Until 2023)

• Vice Presidente           Xavier       BONTE             (Until 2023)

• Treasurer                   Laetitia      BERTAGNOLIO  (Until 2025)

• Assistant Treasurer     Alain         MARQUETTE     (Until 2025)

• Secretary                   Nicolas      DUCLOS           (Until 2024)

• Assistant Secretary     Antonin     POIZAT            (Until 2024)

 

The Professional Team

The team in Loisirs Assis Evasion is composed of:

Our salaried employees :

Frédéric BOUNIOL      the manager

Muriel LANDSMANN    the manager assistant

Théo BOUNIOL           Teacher of adapted physical activity and health

Our professional mountain guides and instructors :

Dominique DESBENOIT      a mountain guide and first aid ski patrol worker

Pierre LAPLACE                 a ski and paragliding instructor

 

Volunteers, who are trained to pilot Tandemskis or Cimgos.
 

Every volunteer is trained and has a thorough knowledge of accompanying disabled people

Standing as a reference

Loisirs Assis Evasion is regularly sought after by different organisations for its skill and know how, in France as well as abroad. Among these organisations you can find :

- The French Association for Paralytics (Association des Paralysés de France)

- The National Ski and Mountaineering School (Ecole Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme)

- Regional Councils

- Architect design offices wishing to acquire skills (one of our employees takes part in the evaluation of the Tourism and Disability Quality-Label)

- Specific structures such as ski lift operation companies (POMA…) whose design and research departments seek our advice

- We also organise and train mountain professionals in Spain, Canada, Switzerland, Italy…