Ordinary Heroes. How to Turn Personal Suffering into a Collective Success
Original title: Héros ordinaires. Comment transformer une épreuve personnelle en réussite collective
- 2 Seas represents: World Excl. French rights.
- At Allary Éditions, she is the author of Life (published in 2018, 10,000 copies sold).
ESSAY| SOCIETY
They repaired the world. They’re designing a positive society.
The feat of the eight “ordinary heroes” of this book was not accomplished in a day — far from it. They suffered a hard blow, went through hardship, and turned it into something great for all of us through courage, energy and altruism, often deployed for years before their idea became a concrete realization.
Accident, illness, disability, mourning… They could have remained victims, but all have set up an unprecedented achievement that comes to meet a need, a lack, a vacuum, which they identified in the face of adversity and which they were the first ones to suffer from. Their magnificent invention, a direct result of their suffering, is a tangible creation destined to spare others today the difficulties and sorrows that overwhelmed them in the
past.
The deeds of each of them help repair the world and change the face of society. They innovated and worked for the best in very different fields, most often after a 180-degree turn because many of them had no skills or initial training to succeed. But they decided that what they had suffered should serve (the good of) the greatest number of people.
Turning their backs on misfortune, they mobilized all their energy. And they succeeded.
These eight stories, about twenty pages each, draw the face of a positive society, with everyday actors capable of using their strength as much as their hearts:
- Roger became deaf as a child and created Roger Voice, a universal software which
transcribes phone calls. - Flore’s brother has Down syndrome. She created, at age 26, Le Reflet, the first restaurant where the majority of employees has Down syndrome.
- Judith and Juliette, who witnessed their mothers’ cancer at a very young age, have developed at the age of 25 the cosmetics brand Même, the first to be approved by oncologists to relieve the effects of chemotherapy.
- Cécile has a daughter with several disabilities and can’t find any ordinary children’s clothes that fit her. She invents Les Loups bleus, the first clothing brand for “extraordinary children”.
- When threatened by unemployment because the historic bookstore in Clermont-Ferrand where she works is placed in liquidation, Martine and her team buy it from the bar of the Court and transform Les Volcans into a flourishing co-op.
- Nadine and Philippe’s daughter Marilou dies in a car accident caused by a driver under the influence of drugs. They push for a vote for “the Marilou law”, which from now on condemns such drivers and organizes training courses for traffic offenders.
- When Elodie and Louis can’t find any place to breathe with their heavily handicapped daughter, they invent “Les bobos à la ferme” (Boo-Boos at the Farm), adapted guest houses where parents can meet and exchange with each other, while their children are entrusted to professionals.
- Laurent, who is heavily burnt, and Sophie couldn’t find any wellness institutes where one can go to when one is physiologically atypical. They invent Dulcenae, an institute that adapts to all peculiarities.
Catherine Siguret is a writer, screenwriter and journalist. She has authored about 60 books in her own name or on behalf of celebrities, psychiatrists, doctors, and psychoanalysts. They all have a common thread: they tell life stories and the destinies of anonymous persons.