Handicapped Ministries

Classification scheme:

XIV-3.23

Title: Handicapped Ministries Committee series

Dates of creation: 1980-1997

Physical description: 30 cm of textual records

Administrative history: In 1980, Henry Enns of the MCC Canada Handicap Awareness Project held a workshop in Ontario. The workshop stimulated interest among Ontario Mennonites in raising "handicap awareness" through community education, and encouraging congregations to become supportive and physically accessible places. The United Nations International Year of the Disabled (1981) also helped focus Mennonite attention on this area, both nationally and provincially.

The provincial Handicapped Ministries Committee grew out of the MCC Ontario (MCCO) Community Services Committee. During its existence, the committee went by several names reflecting changing terminology and its place in the MCCO structure: the Task Force for the Disabled, the Handicapped Ministries Board, the Ad Hoc Committee on Handicapped Concerns, the Handicapped Ministries Committee, and Challenged Abilities Ministries.

Following a trip to California to visit independent living centres, Henry Enns encouraged MCC Ontario to explore the concept's viability in Canada. MCCO's Handicap Ministries Board created a task force in 1981, which moved quickly to establish needs, priorities and funding. The Independent Living Centre's first program was the Mooregate Apartment Project (1982), which provided supportive housing for 10 disabled persons. Several programs followed, providing support for disabled people to live independently in the community, and raising public awareness of disability issues. One notable outreach program was the "Kids on the Block" puppet show. The Independent Living Centre became separately incorporated from MCC Ontario in 1987.

Meanwhile, the Handicapped Ministries Committee became a formal program committee of MCCO in 1986. That same year it sponsored the publication of Michael Schwartzentruber's From Crisis to New Creation. In 1987, mental health concerns were added to its mandate. In 1988, its direction to also support developmental disabilities was affirmed. During these years, the Committee focused more directly on resourcing Mennonite congregations on issues of disability and accessibility. An annual "Building Community" retreat was held beginning in 1987.

In 1997, MCCO's five-year reorganization plan included dissolving this committee.

Custodial history: Files were transferred from the offices of Mennonite Central Committee Ontario in Kitchener to the Archives in 2014

Scope and content: Organizational records of the Handicapped Ministries Committee and Independent Living Centre (before it became separately incorporated).

Notes: See also the newsletter Access-Able, located in the Milton Good Library.
Original archival description created 2024 by Laureen Harder-Gissing

File list: