In the small village of Hertha live handicapped door-to-door with ‘ordinary’ people. Here is a very special life and unity.
– We are different. There are ordinary people, and some are mentally handicapped. I’m also a little retarded though.
Lars Munksgaard is 36 years old and live in the City of Herskind in eastern Jutland, along with 149 others.
It writes TV2 east Jutland.
Here know most of each other, and everyone knows at least Lars.
– The most important thing is to get out and order something. Enjoy each other and enjoy nature – as long as it lasts, ” says Lars Munksgaard to TV2 Østjylland.
Every day Lars has his fixed routines in the group home where he lives along with four others. He goes every day to work in the City, either in the bakery or he was employed to cook in the kitchen.
– I love to stay out here. It is really, really good, he says.
In the Hertha slider wooden houses in different colors and shapes up, and is home to the 27 disabled people and the unbridled, as they call the others here.
– it is a residential neighborhood, that has assumed a omsorgsopgave, says Per Clauson-Kaas, who has been around since the beginning in 1994, and still lives and works in the City.
– Here we live door to door with the mentally handicapped. And it is like that, that makes it something special, says Leander Vinmans, who lives with his wife and their two children in the City.
the Whole idea with Hertha Levefællesskab is to create a village life, where there is space for everyone – and where the mentally handicapped can be a part of society.
– So they don’t become lonely, and so they are citizens just like everyone else – but with needs a little more care, explains Per Clauson-Kaas to TV2 Østjylland.
In 1987, went Per Clauson-Kaas and about 40 other people together to develop a vision.
It was among other things, the parents of the mentally handicapped, who wanted to create a meaningful life for their children when they were adults – so they would not be placed in a shielded place and risk being lonely.
“the Group to rework a vision of how the mentally handicapped adults could be placed in a situation that gave them an optimal life, in a community with so-called normal.”
Seven years later – in 1994 – they were ready to take the first sod for Hertha Levefællesskab on a field in the then easier to sail a boat to the Municipality.
– It was exciting, if someone would move in. Otherwise, we were just a institution in a field and 40 acres of land, says Per Clauson-Kaas.
It turned out that many would like to move in and live with and among the handicapped.
And it will also in the day, where there currently are 57 on the waiting list to move into the City Levefællesskab, and approximately 20 disabled people on the waiting list for one of the three group homes.
Institutions tend to close on themselves by nature. Caring is important for the residents and their parents, but they must also be a part of society and be accepted. So they don’t get lonely, says Per Clauson-Kaas, which today stands for the workshops in the City.
the City serves as an institution like any other but they try to do it in their own way.
– You get a salary for being with them for so and so long time. The legal and economic take over. If the economy is in order, and you follow the laws, then they have got what they need. But it is not enough. We are very different people, and we have different needs, says Per Clauson-Kaas.
– When the workshops are closed, and the mentally handicapped are not here, so here become boring. So is it just like a regular parcelhuskvarter, says Karen Wadsholt in the number 34 to TV2 Østjylland.
In Hertha they have a Rudolf Steiner pedagogy. Rituals and recognizable is important to create safety for the handicapped.
the Work does not only mean much to the mentally handicapped. It also provides life in the village.
– When the mentally handicapped are on holiday, and workshops closes, then we say that the village door. So, we are just a residential neighborhood. We will be more than a residential neighborhood, says Per Clauson-Kaas.
Lars is DOWN to work and not afraid to take hold of the bakery, in the kitchen and in the local kindergarten.
– It is lovely to come to work and talk with the other, says Lars Munksgaard.
– Work commits. We do not have any, as do not want to go to work. We have some that can’t, but it is in the physical. And we take of course into account, says Per Clauson-Kaas, who is the leader of the workshops.
The mentally handicapped, working in the biodynamic garden, where residents can even download their vegetables. There are also cows and calves, as they fit, catering, laundry, sewing, and bakery, which are baked rye bread and pastries, as they run out with and selling to institutions.
– When you sell goods, so if you come in contact with the world. And we sell the goods for two million dollars a year. It will say that we come very much in contact, says Per Clauson-Kaas.
Each year about 6,000 guests over Hertha Levefællesskab to see how life is lived here.
Lars Munksgaard greets cheerfully with a smile and a hug, if he meets them on his way to one of grusvejene.
For him is the dream to live in the City forever. here he will find the great love.
– It is the biggest dream. It is to get a girlfriend. But it is not so easy to find a girlfriend out here, for there are not so many, I would have, he tells.
