What is L'Arche

We believe that people with learning disabilities have much to teach us and contribute to the world.  Over the last 50 years, we have learnt the best way to enable this is by creating Communities with a culture of shared lives between people with and without learning disabilities, from which we can work together to build a more human society.

In L’Arche we celebrate people with learning disabilities and build circles of support around them.  We go beyond basic needs to attend to people’s emotional and spiritual lives.  It is this focus:  on building relationships and a sense of belonging, on supporting each member of the Community with and without learning disabilities to reflect on what they have learnt and to share that reflection, that makes us different from other service providers.  

L’Arche Communities hold in balance these four elements; service, community, spirituality & outreach.  Experience has shown that each element has an important role to play and needs to be present, not only for a Community to be healthy, but in order to make us better at the other three.