“Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.”

Jean Vanier

 
This project is a work in progress - documenting the lives of people living with an intellectual disability and their families. Human fragility, as is often the case, frightens most citizens. It engages us to open ourselves and recognize our own fragilities. But societies today seem to have no time for human beings whose lives ask us to slow down; whose lives encourage us to care for one another and value our gifts. I am trying to understand and document inclusion and marginalization of people who, because of many different reasons, are asked to be "normal" or stay hidden.

It is easy to marginalize somebody whose language and whole living is completely different from us. Most families I have had the privilege to meet, live with the constant struggle of exclusion of one of their children, brother or sister but they also live with the great difficulty of accepting a person that society rejects. Children in most parts of the world are asked to become the providers for the parents and the family when they grow up. Having a member of the family who will never be able to fulfill such duty can be a burden. It is love and a deep acceptance of the person as he or she is that is needed to help in those times. Of course, a little governmental help or community resources never hurt! It is when we leave families to carry such a burden by themselves that we can see the most difficult situations happen.

Historically throughout the world, people with disabilities (physical, sensorial, intellectual) as well as people with mental illnesses (and too often people still make no difference between the two) have often been subject to rejection and sometimes, even denial of the right to exist. Institutions, prisons and hospitals have all been known to give a place of "welcoming" to many of these people, but not often very welcoming at all. If in some countries, like the Ivory Coast, children who are born with multiple disabilities are still too often killed before they reach the age of one. In developed countries, like the United States, 70% of parents who learn that their future baby has a chance of being born with Down syndrome decide to have an abortion.

But the future is not all dark. People with disabilities live longer lives today than they use to with far more rights and doors being opened to them. Also, more organizations than ever before work towards advocacy and the inclusion and well-being of handicapped people. This is happening throughout the world.

For the last five years, I have also been documenting L'Arche, an organization founded by Canadian Jean Vanier in 1964 to give a place of welcoming to people with intellectual disabilities. Now present in over 40 countries, with more than 140 communities, L'Arche is a place of great acceptance where people with or without disabilities live their lives together.

If I have decided to make these stories the central focus of my work, it is because I believe the daily struggles and the profound resiliency found in them are great lessons of humility and acceptance. An inclusive society, one that truly gives a place to each of its members, is a more human society.

To license this work for editorial, creative, or other uses, click on the OZMO logo above.

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Disability, Global Health, Poverty, Family, Human Rights, intellectual disability,

 Some of my work was made possible through a collaboration with L'Arche international

 Jonathan Boulet-Groulx

jbg_photo@yahoo.ca

(+01) 438.998.0413

Member of Ballad