Light for L’Arche – Community Impact
Community Impact Rippling Out
The impact of Ma’an lil Hayat ripples far out into the wider community, and your gift helps them continue to help others in the wider community. See below for stories of how they are involved and the people impacted by their actions and existence. Your gift goes far beyond what you might imagine; to local hospitals, universities, shepherds, tailors, and more…
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This community needs $410,00 Canadian to operate for a year. That’s $7,885 for a week, or $1,123 for a day. To support more than 50 people and their families as well as provide benefits to the broader community. Can you help?
Welcome, support and gifts ripple out to:
People with intellectual disabilities (referred to as our core members) have a central place at Ma’an Lil-Hayat; they are welcomed have rights and responsibilities as full human beings who have something significant to offer to others. Ma’an lil Hayat welcomes 40 people with disabilities and provides supports their families.
Ma’an lil Hayat employees 13 people. Many people in and around Bethlehem are unemployed these days due to the terrible circumstances they are living in, so some of these employees are the only people in their family who bring in an income.
We work with two different shepherds from the Bethehem and Hebron areas. Each one works with several other shepherds collecting and cleaning the wool. So the impact reaches 10 shepherds and their families.
There are two tailors who work with us and do the finishing of the products. One lady from Bethlehem who has 2 young sons with intellectual disability and her husband is a carpenter but since Covid and then the war he is not working and another tailor who is from Hebron who makes the leather items for us. He is the only person who works in his family and is responsible for a family of 6 children and his wife.
Ma’an lil Hayat welcomes students from local universities and programs, such as Dar al Kalima university. Ma’an lil-Hayat has entered into partnerships with a number of local universities who now send some of their students every semester for an internship experience. The students come from a variety of fields – special education, occupational therapy, social work, physical therapy, business, etc. This exposure invites students into a safe environment of diversity and leads them to discover the gifts that people with differing abilities can bring to community life.
Numerous local and international guests visit our community. The welcoming environment and joyful atmosphere offer an alternative view of people with intellectual disabilities who are often marginalized and looked down upon in society. Day-to-day life at Ma’an lil-Hayat introduces visitors to core members’ great capacity for welcome and friendship, among other qualities, and contributes to encouraging visitors to see the person first, rather than the disability.
More than 400 young people from Croatia, France, Egypt and Palestine have already participated in the international project TwidSA – Together with and without intellectual disabilities in self-advocacy , and more than 1,000 new participants are expected by the end of the project. The project brings together young people in a series of 16 online meetings that promote inclusion , mental health, intercultural dialogue and active citizenship – all that makes life richer and more meaningful.
Sana, one of our long-term core members, underwent chemotherapy treatment as an outpatient at a local hospital. As the months went by, she and Amal (the assistant who accompanied Sana to the hospital) got to know the other patients in the unit. So this oftentimes dismal, even frightening place became a safe space where friends could connect, support each other, and – dare we say it? – experience joy. After Sana finished her chemotherapy sessions, she and Amal realized that they missed their friends – the other outpatients – at the hospital. And Sana asked: “But who will make them smile if we aren’t there?” Remembering that no refreshments or snacks were provided at the hospital for the chemotherapy outpatients and their companions, we decided to prepare some sandwiches, fruit and drinks ourselves and go twice a week to visit and offer the snacks we had made. This touches people in the far broader community.
One person called to say “It’s not only the food, you know. Your visits change our lives! It’s almost impossible to find a reason to smile when you’re in the middle of a chemotherapy session, and yet, when you people walk in, everyone’s mood changes. You remind us that we’re alive and that we’re able to enjoy life, even in the midst of the ordeal of chemotherapy.”