The Indian culture is very rich, and many local customs seem strange to us. But it is not Indian cultural habits I find disturbing; it’s the crushing reality of poverty and the sheer number of people everywhere in the streets.

In L’Arche, we are used to the intellectual “poverty” of the core members of our homes and workshops. But, in the Western world at any rate, we have forgotten the revolting reality of dire economic poverty and, when we come face to face with it, we have a tendency to protect ourselves, to shut down, just as society in general shuts down in the face of people with intellectual disabilities.

We are somewhat used to living with inequalities of different kinds, but this kind of poverty hits us harder than most, perhaps because it hits a nerve, because we have a real fear of this kind of suffering.

In Kolkata, we see people living in the streets under makeshift shelters; we see small babies and young children, often almost naked, accompanying their mothers, who beg relentlessly. There is garbage, nauseating smells, and people who look at us, who point at us, who see us as rich. They are very friendly and yet we look away, because we feel powerless. We don’t want to say, “No,” and “no” yet again – and we end up walking away. People from L’Arche walking away from other people…!

There is so much to learn from people who are poor and from communities in poor countries. Their reality is very different from our own and, as members of an international federation, we must consider these different cultural and economic situations. In our own communities, we must look at our mission and our identity from beyond our own, isolated point of view. There are hundreds of realities such as we see in this country, whose inhabitants are fighting for their very survival. To understand this, and to understand the dignity of each of the individuals whom we meet in the street, without looking away from them—this is our daily work in L’Arche.


Coming to Kolkata has been a clear reminder of this task.

Patrice Paradis, Delegate from L’Arche Mauricie

(Watch the embedded video to see  the streets of Kolkata by Silas Donham.)