After 16 years of work, the Chartreuse de Neuville-Sous-Montreuil (Pas-de-Calais) “shines again”
She had always refused an article about her. “We are a whole team,” recalls the director of the Chartreuse de Neuville association. But this reluctance disappears when it comes to highlighting the commitment of the 80 volunteers and 13 employees who support her in this crazy adventure: rehabilitating a Carthusian monastery of 18,000 m2, the largest historical monument project in France after Notre-Dame de Paris!
Married and mother of three children, this native of Tourcoing (Nord) has traveled the world for a long time: she first worked with street children in Bolivia, then at the European Community and the Hôpital sans frontières association. Once married, she became a CPE (senior education advisor) in a high school in Yvelines before moving to the Côte d’Opale, where the couple created a craft brewery. Then Alexia left her husband to manage the business to get involved in 2008 in the rehabilitation of the Chartreuse de Neuville-Sous-Montreuil (Pas-de-Calais), founded in 1324 and in a state of abandonment after having served as a hospital and hospice. A bet won after sixteen years of work. “The Chartreuse shines in the service of a more humane and responsible society,” rejoices Alexia. A space for reflection and action, the site is full of proposals for the inhabitants of this rural region near Le Touquet: cultural programming, incubator, artist residency, integration pathways, training. “We are reconnecting with the role of the abbeys which also acted in the social, educational and economic fields.” Alexia, who, in her childhood, learned “to navigate with people from all backgrounds”, rediscovers at the Chartreuse this mix that is close to her heart.
Make way for the festivities
The association is secular, but its director confides that her faith helps her to “hold on” in the face of difficulties, because there are still obstacles to buying the other half of the property and completing the work with a sustainable economic model. “We would like to experiment with legal, financial and training tools, which are currently lacking in France to help large heritage complexes in danger.” In the meantime, it’s time for the 700th anniversary festivities. On October 5, to close the summer program (mass, concerts, arts and crafts festival, etc.), an Italian theater troupe will call on amateur artists from the region. “A program that resonates with our mission, which is to cultivate the complementarity of talents,” says Alexia happily.
