1. home
2. community
3. something for you
a) introduction
b) why become an assistant?
c) Skills, coaching and training
d) What’s the job
e) Practical arrangements
f) Application
g) Sending organisations
4. the whole world
5. contact
1) home
Welcome!
L’Arche is a place of belonging.
Everybody is important and has something to contribute.
We need each other.
Our community consists of four life-communities and a workshop. People with learning disabilities live and work together with people without learning disabilities.
We are surrounded by friends and volunteers who share in these lifes.
It is a life in which our humanity is central,
A life where you can grow in humanity, spirituality
A life where you learn to know yourself
A life where you learn to appreciate the others
To discover that we are all part of the same humanity.
In these pages, you can learn more about usbut you are also always welcome to meet us and have a cup of coffee or tea.
Johan Roose
Community leader
2) community
We are a community near Antwerp where people with and without learning disabilities live, work, eat, pray, do the dishes, quarrel and reconcile again. In short, we try to be a home for each other. The people with learning disabilities and most of the people without learning disabilities (we call them ‘assistants’) live in the same house. We have our own workshop, ‘t Ateljee. In ‘t Ateljee the people with learning disabilities make candles, cook, swim, play drama, create art,…
People with and without learning disabilities have the same value and dignity. By sharing our lives, we reveal the beauty of every life. We are an open community rooted in the Christian spirituality and we find it important that everybody can think??? and celebrate their own spirituality, be it Christian or other convictions. In our houses, we sing before the meal, we like lighting candles and celebrate intensively every birthday. The people with learning disabilities unite us / bring us together.
People with learning disabilities have often the gift of welcoming and authenticity. They show us our common humanity. We all want to love and be loved. They invite the people who live with them to slow down and take time for the real important things in life. People with learning disabilities are confronted with their own limits all the time and they need to ask for help. They teach the people without learning disabilities that it is not a catastrophe to ask for help. We can say: ‘I need you’. That is when a real encounter can be born, from heart to heart.
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3) something for
you
a) introduction
Quote:
“When I arrived in the community, I had immediately the feeling of being at home. Not only the house gave me a home feeling, but also the people who where ‘bombarding’ me with their interested questions.”
Sarolta Szabo from Romania (left)
The success and progress of our Arkgemeenschap depends on the commitment of a lot of people. We are always looking for people who are willing to join us as an assistant. Most of them are volunteers. They have an important place in our community.
In our L’Arche community, assistants and people with learning disabilities live, work and share their time together. If you want to join us to assist people with learning disabilities, you will be challenged to difference and diversity, to openness and tolerance, to close relationships, to personal and spiritual growth.
There are L’Arche communities in the whole world. Our community is located in the northern part of Belgium, close to the city of Antwerp. Antwerp is a beautiful city (mayor town in Flanders) well known for its international port and for being a world center for diamond trade. We have 4 houses located in Boechout, Mortsel and Wilrijk, which are all situated about 6 to 12 km from the centre of Antwerp. The town of Antwerp offers a lot of possibilities in terms of cultural activities (films – museum – pubs – parks – youth clubs - …).
b) why become an assistant?
Quote:
During the year, I learnt to use my gifts to help others or to make them happy, but I also learn to accept my own weaknesses.
You don’t have to do very special things to make someone happy. A simple smile is sometimes worth more than all the presents of the world!
Rike from Germany (left)
Being a L’ArcheAssistant is not just a job. People with learning disabilities call us to live in a direct and spontaneous way. They challenge our closely held beliefs or opinions. They show us a different way to live. So as a L’Arche Assistant you will be challenged each day. You may be taken to your limits of joy and sorrow, love and frustration. You will need a good sense of humour! You will also find many rewards. You’ll certainly discover the gifts that people with learning disabilities will bring to your life. They are people with a great capacity for spontaneity, loving, growing and sharing. Many Assistants find this inspiring.
Assistants often find to their surprise that they have as much to receive as they have to offer. The commitment you give will inspire friendship, respect and personal awareness. It can be an important step in your personal development
c) Skills, coaching and training
Skills
You don’t need a special ‘formation’ or experience with community-life or working with people with learning disabilities. But it can be a help. We expect you to have a good mental health.
You have to be motivated to:
• to live in a household with people with learning disabilities and other Assistants
• be ready to become a member of a team working both within the house and also in the wider L'Arche Community
• be open for training and to learn what building Community means in this life-sharing context
• be ready to use as many practical life skills as you have, like cooking and household management.
• Learn Dutch. We are a Dutch speaking community. Learning Dutch is the first thing you will have to do. The language is something in between English and German. If you know one of these languages, Dutch is easy to learn. We will help you in finding the best suitable Dutch course. Dutch is hip!
• To be open to our Christian spirituality. We are open to host people having different beliefs/traditions. Mutual respect for each others beliefs/traditions is very important.
• Grow in who you are and want to learn from your experiences
• Because of the language, we request you to stay at least 9 months,
preferably one year.
Coaching
You will be ‘coached’ by the house leader and by the assistants’ coordinator. You will also be supported by assistants with experience and with a pedagogical background. In this coaching and support the volunteer will get chances to grow (e.g. in taking responsibilities) adapted to his or her capacities.
As daily life can be very intensive and confronting, we believe it is important for the assistant to have a person outside the house with whom he/she can talk about his personal process. This is what we call “L’Arche accompaniment”.
Every week there is a team meeting during which we discuss the pedagogical approach and learn to reflect on what we observe.
There are various other places where you can share and exchange experiences and talk about difficulties (house meeting with all the house members, assistants meeting). After three months, you are involved in the pedagogical follow up of each individual person with a mental disability; this meeting is also attended by an orthopedagogue.
Training
Quote: In the first weeks everything was new. Most of the time I was busy observing so as to get to know the life in the Community and theothers. In this time all the Assistants showed and explained things to me. I got a lot more information about practical things and about L’Arche itself and this information were very helpful to set the tasks of life in a bigger context. In the beginning I always worked together with another Assistant.
Sebastian from Germany
The new assistants receive ‘on the job’ training to learn how to assist the persons with a learning disability. The first weeks of arrival will be a time of observation and information about “who we are” and “what are the rules of living together” (the assistants coordinator will give you two documents: ‘Onthaalmap’, a kind of welcome pack and ‘De missietekst’, the mission text). Depending on how well the volunteer knows the Dutch language , we will propose you to follow a Dutch language course. A special training for assistants in Antwerp is given with subjects covering ‘who is the person with a learning disability?’, ‘the history of L’Arche’, ‘the pedagogical approach of L’Arche’, …
A training will be organized for all first year assistants from the “Region L’Arche Belgium and the Netherlands” . This will be an opportunity to meet other L’Arche volunteers with the possibility to share and exchange experiences. You also have the opportunity to follow a retreat to deepen the spirituality of L’Arche with other first year assistants from whole Europe. Anneke tells you what this retreat meant for her:
At the end of June I went on a retreat with another volunteer. I have had no Christian education so at the beginning I was a little bit afraid that the retreat would be too Christian for me. But still I decided to go and now I ‘m proud that I participated.
The goal of the retreat was to reflect upon the year I spent in L’Arche and the experiences I lived, and I was invited to reflect upon who I really am.
The only thing that was explicitly Christian was the celebration in the evening, but it wasn’t obligatory. As in L’Arche Antwerp, everyone accepted my opinion/beliefs, which I found really great.
I do have some free time in L’Arche but I didn’t use it very intensively to reflect upon the year I spent there. This was something that struck me during the retreat, since every day we had moments of sharing in small groups and we also participated in workshops and talks with these small groups.
Those talks have really made me think. By reflecting profoundly upon the year I spent in L’Arche I was able to better understand the value of this year for me.
During the retreat I realized that the past year has been an important step in my life, because I have got to know myself better.
Anneke from Germany
You will also follow the training of your Sending Organisation if you have any.
d) What’s the job
Quote:
My tasks consisted mainly in assisting the people with a learning disability if they needed my help. I also helped to clean the house, go shopping and all the other things that need to be done when you live in a house. We went to celebrations together, gathered during house evenings, we chatted and went on several trips.
I have seen that living together is at the heart of a L’Arche community, more than working.
Jana from Germany
Typically in a L’Arche house you’ll share your life with up to ten people. About six of them will be people with learning disabilities. You’ll support and take care for each other.
The volunteer will live in one of our 4 community houses (Madona or Roeach in Boechout, Windroos in Mortsel or Klokhuis in Wilrijk). The tasks we ask of the volunteer are described below.
As the volunteer chooses to live in the community, we expect an extra presence as part of our vision that “living together” is more important than “working together”. The volunteers are present a lot around the house, but that doesn’t mean that they are working all the time. Since they also live there, they will have the time to do things on their own and just be around so that the people with learning disabilities don’t feel alone and can ask for help if needed. It is difficult to calculate this in terms of hours, because it is just ‘living together’.
1. The volunteer will spend time together with the house members in the evenings and in the weekends. This includes for example: playing a game in the evening, cooking together, eating together, going shopping together, community evening, going out to dance, going out for a walk, going out for a drink, going to the library, cleaning the house together, celebrating a birthday party …-> this represents around 20% of the total work time (about 8 hours a week).
2. The volunteer will need ‘to be around’, but he or she doesn’t need to entertain the people with learning disabilities all the time. Volunteers will have the time to do things on their own (like painting, writing, listening to music, reading books,…) in the living-room and just need to be around. If the volunteer wants to go out of the house, he/she needs to look with his/her co-workers if it is possible.
3. The volunteer will assist the people with learning disabilities in daily life. Some examples: On a regular basis the volunteer will assist the person with a learning disability in buying new clothes or in buying a present. A few times a week the volunteer will also assist the person with a learning disability in the morning (waking up, breakfast) and in the evening (going to bed). Every week the volunteer will assist a person with a learning disability in cleaning his/her own room. -> represents 15% (around 6 hours a week).
4. The volunteer will attend the different meetings (team meeting, assistants meeting, house meeting). These are places to share, to be informed, to organise. -> represents 15 % (around 5 hours a week).
5. The volunteer will do some tasks in the house: cleaning, shopping. -> a few hours a week (15%). If possible, he/she is doing this together with the people with learning disabilities (as seen in 1. spend time together with the house members)
6. According to the interest of the volunteer there is also the possibility to participate in one or more activities of the workshop (e.g. making cards, painting, drawing, cooking, swimming, gardening). 10 assistants (professionals) take the lead of the workshop that consists of a group of 30 people with learning disabilities. The volunteer participates in this activity. optional: a few hours a week (10%).
7. The volunteer will have space and time to organize a personal project for/with the persons with a learning disability. This can be alone or with another assistant (volunteer or paid professional) For example: organize a party, create a puzzle and make it together with the person with a disability; organize a day trip with the house members; giving a presentation about their country and culture with pictures/stories/typical food etc.; …. a few hours a week (10%).
8. The volunteer will join the house members on holidays (one week between Christmas and New Year; two weeks in the summer – July or August).
e) Practical arrangements
Food:
The meals are taken in the community and are prepared by all the members.
On days off you can use the kitchen (with food) to prepare your own meal.
On holidays the volunteer gets a fee for food (5 euro/day).
Accommodation:
The volunteer will stay in the house of our community with other house members (people with and without a mental disability).
He or she has his own private room with sink.
Toilets and shower/bath are not private but are to be shared.
The rest of the house is open and to use for the needs of the volunteer.
It’s important to create a feeling of being home. Therefore we give the volunteer the possibility to use the whole house.
Pocket money
The volunteer receives 105 euro per month for his/her own needs. Living in the house (bed and meals) is free.
The volunteer has two days off every week. Once a month the two days off are a complete weekend, from Friday evening till Sunday evening.
On a year basis (12 months), the volunteer has 24 days of holidays. He/she will have to discus within the team when he/she wants to spend those holidays. We motivate the volunteer to live the Christmas period and the Easter period within the community as these are an important time to share in L’Arche.
If the volunteer has a driving licence, he/she can ask to use a community car (if available, and payable) in the free time to meet people or to go to other towns in Belgium. There is also a good public transport network (bus, tram, train) to travel around in the neighbourhood and in Belgium. Every house also has a bicycle that can be used.
f) Application
• You fill in the application form and write us a motivation letter.
• If possible, you come for some days for a visit in our community in Antwerp:
o You can see what life in our community looks like
o You will meet the assistant’s coordinator to see how everything is going.
o You have the opportunity to talk to the other volunteers from Belgium and abroad to hear how they experience life in our community.
o We decide if you can come or not and when you can come.
• If you can’t come to our community, we help you to organise to visit a L’Arche-community in your own country:
o The assistant’s coordinator asks feedback from the community you’re visiting.
o You phone with somebody who is now a volunteer in our community, so you hear how life is about in our community from first hand.
o We decide if you can come or not and when you could come.
g) Sending organisations
We work very often with Sending Organisations. These Sending Organisations have a list with volunteering-projects. We are on that list.
The Sending organisation helps the volunteer to find a good suitable project, prepares the volunteer before going abroad en keeps contact during the volunteering-service.
We have good contact with 
o EVS
The aim of the European Voluntary Service (EVS) is to support young people's participation in various forms of voluntary activities, both within and outside the European Union. Under this Action, young people (between 18 and 30 years old) take part individually or in groups in non-profit, unpaid activities. The service may last up to twelve months.
The project number of Arkgemeenschap Antwerpen is 2007-BEFL-16.
http://www.jint.be/ in Belgium
www.ec.europa.eu/youth
o ASF
For people from Germany, there is Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste. You can read more in German about them on their website: http://www.asf-ev.de/
4) the whole world
From Australia to Zimbabwe, from Austria to Switserland: more than 40 years after founding the first community in France, L’Arche is developed to a worldwide network of friends.
We are present in 35 countries with 136 communities. And this network of friends is getter bigger each year.
You can find more information about L’Arche in the whole world on http://www.larche.org/.
5) contact
Arkgemeenschap Antwerpen
Groenstraat 46
2640 Mortsel
Tel: +32 3 460 37 10
Fax: +32 3 460 37 11
ark.antwerpen@moso.be
