Stiftung Leben und Arbeiten

The Johannishag Residential and Working Foundation is a social therapeutic community located in Ostersode, near Bremen in northwestern Germany. This residential community was founded in 1995 with the aim of providing a place for people with varied abilities and disabilities to live and develop their potential together. Currently more than 70 people live at Johannishag in 6 house groups and residential communities (each with 2 or 3 people), with about 20 professional staff and volunteers supporting the residents in their common living and working experiences. The residents enjoy a wide range of therapeutic and artistic opportunities. Both, people with special needs and staff have the chance to develop their individual talents in 6 different work areas: there is a house garden and small agricultural area with livestock (Johannishof), a textile workshop, a weaving centre, a theatre workshop with café and a central kitchen. The places of life should be a home and offer the security that people with disabilities in particular need for their development, be a protected and recognized part of the surrounding community with flowing transitions and different forms of belonging, assistance and support, radiate a peaceful atmosphere that heals people and the earth. In realizing these goals, the impulses of people with disabilities, their relatives and legal guardians as well as the employees should be taken into account. Living together opens the space for integration. Each living group is an individual field of life. This becomes clear in the way in which one's own rooms are furnished and how living together within each living group is arranged according to one's own needs and inclinations. This creates a real home. The work in a community that carries itself in freedom and personal responsibility and has set itself goals for its own realization is manifold. All those living in the community are co-creators of this process.