My Home in L'Arche Stories from L'Arche Communities in Australia

Fifty years ago, L’Arche was born in a small French town called Trosly when Jean Vanier invited two men with intellectual disabilities living in a Mental Institution to come and live with him. One hundred and forty three L’Arche Communities now exist in over forty countries. Sharing stories has become an essential feature of life within L’Arche Communities and forms the basis for developing lasting mutual relationships, not only between core members, assistants and other members of a Community home, but also within the broader L’Arche Community. Within our L’Arche Communities in Australia we have developed a Remembering, Celebrating and Dreaming process that encourages core members and companions from within the Community to spend time together getting to know each other, dreaming about plans for the future and celebrating lives together. Often a core member may not have been afforded an opportunity to share some aspects of their lives or to talk about issues that worry them or what they would like to do to make their lives comfortable. Spending time, listening and sharing stories helps to facilitate this process and provides an opportunity to share some of these memories and dreams with the broader Community, families and friends. One of the key parts of the L’Arche Mission is to make known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities and all too often we find that it is not only with those directly involved with core members that these gifts become apparent and have a profound influence, but with all who come in contact with them. Most of the time, the stories that arise from these relationships are not shared outside the L’Arche Communities. The importance of sharing stories emanates from our history. Universally as L’Arche welcomed more people into Community we discovered that there was little or no attention paid to the lives and events of core members. Many people had lived significant experiences and they needed these listened to and acknowledged as part of who they are and their personal history. The primary objective of this book is to share some of these stories from people with and without intellectual disabilities who have been involved in some way within L’Arche Communities. Living together and sharing as a Community as well as being part of the broader L’Arche Australia and International Federation Family involves participation in many activities that involve day to day commitments and organisational demands. All of these are part of the L’Arche Australia story and we have tried to include snippets of information that highlight some of the background of L’Arche together with features from day to day Community life and operation of the various Communities. We hope you enjoy these stories and gain a little understanding of the heart of L’Arche.