‘I feel it as my second family, I love it so much’, enthuses Razan, a member of Ma’an lil Hayat, the L’Arche community in Bethlehem. Razan was just one of around 2100 members of the worldwide ‘family’ of L’Arche, who packed their suitcases this summer and headed to Northern France. Included in the group were many people who, like Razan, live with an intellectual disability.
The purpose of the gathering was very simple: celebration! As a rule, L’Arche doesn’t need much reason to celebrate- having fun together has always been an important part of daily community life: birthdays, anniversaries and the seasons of life are regularly marked in style, each as uniquely as the person at the centre of attention.
This time, the big occasion was L’Arche’s 60th anniversary. If the accent was very much on having fun together, there is no denying the background that made this gathering especially welcome. Having lived the trauma following the horrific revelations about founder Jean Vanier, as well as tough restrictions due to Covid, this celebration was a welcome reaffirmation of the essential vision that drives L’Arche forward. And a big part of that vision is, as Razan expresses so clearly, ‘family’.

But what does that really mean for L’Arche today? This is the answer of Saher, an assistant in Razan’s community: ‘the readiness of each member of L’Arche to come to the help of the other.’ He knows of what he speaks: for obvious reasons, the past year has been exceptionally hard for the Bethlehem community: the political situation has meant that they have had to temporarily close their hotel, normally a steady source of income from the tourists and pilgrims who visit the city. And even though they would normally be celebrating their own 15th anniversary, they also took the hard decision to postpone the celebration until circumstances are more calm.

The Brittany celebration showed the wide diversity of L’Arche. Sylvain Brabant, the interim International Leader: ‘in essence, L’Arche is a meeting place- this gathering brought together all the diversity of different religions, different cultures, different languages, different ways of living.’
One might think that so much diversity would make it harder to discover what binds L’Arche together as a family: but Juan Carlos from Mexico explains how the opposite is true: ‘when we come together, we realise that among all the L’Arche communities around the world, there is a kind of line, an invisible magic thread that unites us to each other, despite the distance, despite the language, despite the culture, and that same thread unites us in the same spirit.’
In that spirit, Sian Walker, a member of the Manchester community in the UK echoes Saher’s thoughts about families ‘supporting each other through the bad times and the good times.’ But she wants to make another point as well, very close to her heart: knowing for herself how disability can bring vulnerability, she welcomes the fact that ‘LArche is becoming more global: and I think that is a good thing because the system [of care] will be less institutionalised.’
The United Nations have long recognised the extra vulnerability faced by the 15 % of the global population who live with some kind of disability: in times of national crisis, be it war, famine, flood or earthquake, it is the person who has a disability who tends to be left behind. Study after study has shown that this grim pattern is repeated in all societies and cultures.
What can prevent this from playing out? The answer, in a word, is ‘family’. Not necessarily family in the sense of blood relatives, though that clearly is the model. But really, this is about family in the much wider sense spoken of by Saher and Sian. The fact is, if you have a disability, your chances of survival in times of crisis, are greatly increased if you are part of a caring support group that is covering your back. At the end of the day, it’s your mates that make the difference. And such a group needs to be well in place long before the crisis arrives. In other words, a longterm group enriched by your life and your unique qualities. L’Arche is about creating such circles of support across the world. We call this community and celebrate the contribution each person brings, disabled or not, that make community possible. Watch the film and discover.
Photo credits: François Becker