“Seeing them open really is a dream come true because it has been niggling away in my head for years.” That is how Gary Dovey, warden of The Village at Le Murier in St Sampson’s, Guernsey, described the first two cabins to BBC Radio Guernsey.
The village is meant for young people with special educational needs. The idea is to teach them the daily skills they need to live as independently as possible. The site now has two cabins and a wilderness area, and the plan adds two more cabins and a small working farm.
Dovey said the project grew out of residential trips with students. Some of them struggled with day-to-day living away from home. “If we can reduce the need for care or any help in their living, that’s the result we’re after,” he said when work on the second phase began.
Ten years of fundraising
It took about 10 years to raise the £2m needed to get this far. Individuals and corporations gave the money, through the charity behind the village.
Dovey called the finished cabins “absolutely amazing”. “They are stunning and they have really exceeded my expectations,” he said. “The students are definitely not slumming it.”
The full plan includes a village hall with a classroom, work room and commercial kitchen, a camping area, and woodland and wetland for environmental education. On the farm, Dovey said, research shows that looking after animals “brings out confidence, teamwork and reliability”. Goat and sheep owners have offered to lend animals for a couple of weeks.
Two cabins still to fund
The charity has started the next round of fundraising for the remaining two cabins. Dovey put the figure at £600,000. A cabin arrives as an empty wooden shell, he explained: “when you buy the big wooden shed there is no furniture, flooring or toilets inside.”
“I’m fully aware that it’s not going to be the case for everybody,” he said of independent living, “but if you can live your life independently then that can only be a good thing.”
Sources
- Work starts on village for independent living in St Sampsons
- Le Murier Village for independent living opens first cabins
