L'Arche

- L'Arche is an international federation of ommunities for people with learning disabilities and assistants. We have eight communities in England, Scotland and Wales. They provide real homes in ordinary houses to well over 100 people with learning disabilities and a similar number of assistants.

- "Whatever their gifts or limitations, people are all bound together in a common humanity. Everyone is of unique and sacred value and everyone has the same dignity and the same rights. The fundamental rights of each person include the rights to life, to care, to a home, to education and to work. Since the deepest need of a human being is to love and to be loved, each person has a right to friendship, to communion and to a spiritual life".

Mission in Action

- We will nurture Communities of faith in which mutually transforming relationships can flourish.

- We will promote the gifts of people with learning disabilities and enable them to take full part in L'Arche and society.

- We will be open and outward looking, actively engaged with those around us and responsive to changing needs and circumstances.

- L'Arche International is a Federation whose primary mission is to support its member communities and to unite them in a common vision.

- In consultation with its members, L'Arche International clarifies and defines the essential elements of L'Arche and sees to it that these are present in the Federation's activities, documents and policies. Furthermore, L'Arche International ensures that the organisation's values are lived out according to local cultures, traditions and socio-economic backgrounds rather than being imported as such.

- Within the international community, L'Arche International is moreover working to support people with intellectual disabilities to take their rightful place in our communities and in our societies. As an international organisation, it seeks to promote inclusion, the valuing of diversity, and international solidarity, and seeks to be a sign toward the building of respectful societies founded on "relationships between people of differing intellectual capacity, social origin, religion and culture." (Extract from the Charter)

- The activities of L'Arche International are directed by the International Board and its Executive Committee and carried out by the International Coordinating team which consists of the two International Coordinators, an administrative, a communications and an events manager.