L’Arche Comox Valley is a community of people with and without developmental disabilities sharing life together and celebrating the unique value of each person, revealing each other’s gifts and recognizing our need for one another.
L’Arche is a faith-based society and as such its values of compassion, inclusion, respect for diversity and the dignity of the individual are shared Canadian values. It has no formal affiliation with any church or religious community. Our community and faith life inspire us to be open to people of differing intellectual capacity, social origin, religion, race, and culture.
L’Arche CV is a registered not-for-profit charity that is organized and operated by a volunteer Board of Directors. We are one of 29 L’Arche communities across Canada, operating nearly 200 homes and work places, and part of a network of 145 communities in 40 countries around the world.
What makes a community?
L’Arche exists in many different countries but everywhere the same spirit of community can be found and the same discovery made that beauty exists in every person. Community forms when we discover that we are interdependent and that every person has gifts to contribute to us and we to them.
In many ways, L’Arche is built on the recognition of the ability of individuals with developmental disabilities to welcome and accept others as they are.
We believe that this gift has an important and transformative effect, helping each one of us to become more fully human and thus helping to humanize our entire society.
We truly think that to influence in such a way the life of others, confers on people with developmental disabilities the status of citizens who contribute to make our society a better place to live.
As a service organization, L’Arche is based on a community model of living, rather than a medical or social service model of care.
As a faith-based organization L’Arche recognizes the spiritual and religious needs and aspirations of its members, and respects those who have no spiritual or religious affiliation.