De Ark Gemeenschap Moerkerke-Brugge

De Ark Moerkerke-Brugge is a community-based care facility where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together. Relationships are at the heart of our approach. We try to empower people by building a network around them. We work on a small scale to create a more human society and give people opportunities to grow. De Ark Moerkerke-Brugge has two houses (one in Moerkerke and one in Brugge) and one daycare centre in Vivenkapelle (near Moerkerke). Every day, the people with intellectual disabilities go working in the daycare-center. We are working close together with De Ark Gent, Antwerpen and Gouda. De Ark Moerkerke-Brugge is part of the big international network of l'Arche communities, originally founded in 1964 in France by Jean Vanier. Important accent of L'Arche are: 1. Mutual relationships are at the heart of our approach. We try to empower people by building a network around them. 2. We work on a small scale to create a more human and solidair society and give people opportunities to grow. We live in two houses in the center of Brugge and Moerkerke. 3. Making known the gifts of people with disabilities. They have very often the talent of enthusiasm, spontaneity and accepting their vulnerability. They awaken the heart of people and make people more solidair, open, tolerant and gentle. These are gifts for the world. 4. Personal contact by sharing life: peacebuilding, being more tolerant and experiencing solidarity to people who are different, starts by personal contacts and sharing daily life. By sharing lives we promote a more peaceful and solidair world for every human being. Big changes starts little by little, one heart at a time. 5. Interdependency and mutuality: we also believe that bringing people with and without disabilities together benefits everyone involved. Working with people with intellectual disabilities does not mean one-way giving and helping. Our experience is that people who get a connection with disabled people, also learn from them. They start seeing the world differently, taking more time to enjoy the smaller things in life, and looking at people in a different way. We want as many people as possible to experience this. On this moment, there are 15 people with intellectual disabilities who are living in the two houses. In every house, we have 4 paid professionals who are working in the house, one is also living in the house in Brugge. In the daycare-center are working 5 paid professionals. Everybody is invited to share their lives and to help each other where necessary. Thanks to the paid professionals, the care of the people with disabilities is garantueed. The people with disabilities goes working every day in the daycare-center. Most of the people with disabilities has a job outside the community, f.e. helping in the flowershop. We find it very important to have as much as possible a 'normal' life. We have a lot of friends who are feeling at home in our houses. They come to drink coffee, to help with household tasks (f.e. ironing), going out,... We are an open house where everybody is welcome. We have several community gatherings during the year. On these moments, we invite people to come to our community and having a nice time together. We are very open to the neighbourhood and are participating as much as possible to activities in society like festivals, walks, barbecues,...