History

Benediktus was founded on October 24, 2000, with the aim of providing assistance to families with children with disabilities, especially in their upbringing, education and integration into society. The founding members were Hanka Jarošová, Blanka Nikodemová and priest František Mráz. Benediktus was founded with the long-term goal of building a house in which healthy and disabled people live together. L’Arche became a model for such a house.

From 2002 to 2007, Benediktus was housed in the building of the Roman Catholic parish of Chotěboř and worked closely with the parish. In 2003 Benediktus began providing a personal assistance social service and in 2005 a relief service for people with disabilities. Since 2004, Benediktus has been organizing festivities, concerts, benefits and other cultural events for the public. In 2006, Benediktus began to renovate a house in the parish area, which the organization first rented and later bought.

In 2007, Benediktus moved to the newly renovated house in Klášterní Street in Chotěboř.

In 2006, Benediktus bought an old parish in a desolate state, with adjacent land, in the village of Modletín in the Železné hory mountains. The initial intention was to easily repair the rectory and clean the land by ourselves for the purpose of summer and weekend stays of people with disabilities and Benediktus’ volunteers. We started looking for subsidies in order to reconstruct the rectory, with the possibility of building a house there, where people with disabilities would live together with their assistants.

In 2008, Benediktus bought the ruin of a former spa adjacent to the rectory.

Thanks to smaller grants and the help of L’Arche community Le Caillou Blanc from Brittany, we managed to renovate the downstairs of the rectory in 2009. We used the old rectory for weekends and summer stays, as well as for visits from other L’Arche communities and for cultural events which we have been organizing regularly in Modletín since 2008.

Since 2011, 3 people with disabilities have been living at the rectory with assistants as part of the residential relief social service, and the first workshops have been established here. The socio-therapeutic workshops had been maintained ever since.

In 2013, thanks to a subsidy from European funds, we were able to put a new roof and make an attic installation; during 2014 and 2015, we equipped the housing.

Since 2014, instead of the relief service, we have been providing a day care center service (in Chotěboř and in Modletín) and sheltered housing in Modletín.

In 2015, we completed the construction of a timbered fruit dryer in the garden and began drying.

Since the autumn of 2015, we have 6 people with intellectual disabilities living with assistants in the sheltered housing. The long-awaited core of the community - the house to live in - lives to the fullest...

Since 2018 we are project member of the international Federation of L’Arche.

Since 2020 we acquired the Quality Label certification and are expecting to host first European Solidarity Corps volunteer in the near future.

History of Benediktus/ facts/dates