The creator of France's 'Untouchables' houses

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0:55He wasn't destined for this life but when his sister was severely injured in a car accident his old life died and a new one began

1:07Laurent de Cherisey:His men and women tell us their biggest suffering isn't their disability It's not being in a wheelchair It's not their injured bodies having no memory not being able to stand up not being able to eat or go to the toilet on their own.

1:26Now, this Frenchman has built a network of houses where people with severe disabilities, many of them accident victims like his sister, live side by side with able-bodied people. They tell us the hardest thing. Well, the hardest thing, they say, is the solitude.

1:43Laurent de Cherisey:It's the solitude. les Maisons Simon de Sirene Simon of Cyrene houses untouchables houses they're sometimes called named after the man who helped Jesus carry his cross where people help each other just by being there I'm John Lawrenson and this is the documentary on the BBC World Service for this week's Heart and Soul I'm in France with the story of Laurent de Cherizé the man who created them

2:18It's lunchtime at the Simon of Cyrene house in Ventre, just south of Paris. Audrey, the house manager, announces whose turn it is to serve at the tables and clear up.

2:35There is, in this house, built into the wing of a convent, a joyfulness about the place. Even when it's your turn to wash up, it's pretty amazing when you think about it because most of the people about to tuck into a lunch of sautéed turkey and cream sauce with gratin dauphinois potatoes and green beans are severely disabled. Some were born with heavy physical and or mental disabilities. Others have been badly and permanently injured in accidents.

3:10Here, the joy of being alive, the joy of being with other people, is palpable. This was the very first Simon of Cyrene house. It opened in 2009. There are now 30 of them across France, a number set to double in the next few years. It's a huge operation, making the lives of hundreds of people immeasurably better.

3:41In the Maison Simon de Sirene's beautiful and well-tended garden, I meet the founder, Laurent de Cherizé. It all started, he says, in 1983. He was an ambitious 19-year-old business school student, and then the phone rang, and his life changed forever.

4:03Laurent de Cherisey:I got a call at five in the morning. It was my mum. My sister, Cécile, who was a pretty young girl of 17 with a wonderful future ahead of her, had had an accident. She'd been in a passenger seat of a car that had veered off the road and hit a tree at 80 kilometers an hour. She was seriously injured. For eight months, she was in a coma. We went to the hospital every day. The only answer the doctors could give to our questions was that they didn't know. We never even knew whether she'd still be alive the following morning. And then one day, she woke up. She was smiling. It was partly due to the part of the brain that had been damaged.

4:48Laurent de Cherisey:I think it was also due to the way she'd been treated during her coma. There's a lot of debate in France at the moment about palliative care for the terminally ill. In fact, accident victims need the same kind of tender care she received, and I think that contributed. And also her smile is who she is. She has a beautiful soul, Cécile. It was also the quality of her soul and her love for other people. Her love for life too, maybe. Maybe she was happy to have survived. Heureuse d 'être survivante. Oui, c 'est ça. Et ça, c 'est voir les gens qui viennent ici.

5:46Existentiel, fondamental.

5:48Laurent de Cherisey:What was the seal's injuries? Brain damage. The brain is like a computer hard drive when it's damaged that impacts everything. There are parts of the body that no longer function. So it's a physical disability, but it's also a psychiatric disability, a sensorial disability and a cognitive disability. It's a mix of lots of things and it's not the same for everyone. It's not everyone the same thing. What sort of state were you in after her accident? And how did you recover from a disaster like that?

6:26It's a long road.

6:31Laurent de Cherisey:There are moments in life that we don't choose, such as the loss of someone close to you or an accident. I think in times like these, you have to be gentle, you have to be patient. it's really time that will heal it's not a moment for choices it's a moment for consent I really like this word consent it's a bit like a dance that you do with another person you consent to the trials of life you can go through periods of extreme pain of depression you sink but then it's as if you touch the bottom of the swimming pool and start to rise up again And here you can find a really vital energy. For believers, that vital energy comes from the source of love that we call God, the mystery of the source of love.

7:28How did Cecile's accident change what you considered important? I was a 19-year-old business school student. I wanted success to make a lot of money, but you realize in moments like that, everything's so fragile. And for me, a long period of questioning began about how to use my talents to have a successful life,

7:57Laurent de Cherisey:which is very different from how to use your talents to be successful. And I asked myself some fundamental questions about what I believed in and who I believed in. And I rediscovered something I'd known as a child, the source of love we call God, of God as a living person. And I read the Holy Gospels, which are a school of life and which give you a tremendous taste for life.

8:30There is, for example, in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, that extraordinary dialogue between Jesus and the righteous. I was hungry and you gave me food, he tells them. I was thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, a prisoner, and you helped me. The righteous have no recollection of this whatsoever. Lord, they answer, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison, and help you? And the king will answer them. Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.

9:13Laurent de Cherisey:Reading the Gospels did me so much good and helped me grow beyond my own limits. And realized that for me, in my faith, God is in the other. But when it comes down to it, what's important is how you live. There are many people who live in Simon of Cyrene houses who aren't believers and whose relationships are of a quality that I find inspiring. I'm constantly inspired by people who don't believe in God, but who have a capacity of giving themselves, of sharing love that is magnificent. Was there for you, along with this new understanding of the importance of the other, the importance of our relationships with other people, also a discovery or a rediscovery of God.

10:04Yes.

10:05Laurent de Cherisey:For me, my rediscovery was like St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. For many people, it's a slow, discrete process. I think it depends on the psychology of each individual. For me, it was sudden, and it came with an understanding that love is free.

10:27His sister Cecile's accident had changed the way he saw the world. It had also, unbeknownst to him, set something in motion. But for years, this didn't really alter the direction of his work life. He went into business, did well, founded and sold some companies.

10:46Laurent de Cherisey:I was the same person, and yet I was no longer the same person. I'm an entrepreneur I like creating things I like bringing people together for 20 years I created companies in business and marketing and loved it and I got married and had 5 children but when I got to what was the second half of my life, I began to see something in my prayers that Cécile needed a place to live that would give taste and meaning to her life and that I could be the builder. How did you decide what kind of structure you built? Before we built the Simon of Sirene houses, there were two possibilities for people in Cecile's situation.

11:38Laurent de Cherisey:Medical social centres, which are expensive and there aren't enough of them in France, are home. But your home probably isn't adapted for disabled people and when you've lost your job, you're no longer earning any money, you are more and more lonely. Things can get very difficult. Half the time, families break up under the strain as well. The germ of the idea of a third option came from Cécile and Laurent's mother. She said something fantastic about ten years after Cécile's accident. she said to her we are going to stop looking at your disability because you are much more than that you Cecile are really good at making people feel welcome she doesn't have much memory and with her body it's complicated but she has a great smile and she knows how to welcome people and share her joy during her four years in hospital she'd had time to strike up some good friendships and it was this group of friends who became a sort of promise of what we'd create here.

12:51Laurent de Cherisey:So I worked with this little group. I asked them what they wanted. They said they didn't want to live with their aging parents anymore, however much they loved them. They wanted their own place. They wanted to live as a family of friends. So I said, great, we can create something in the country with horses and flowers, and they said that would make them even more isolated. Yes, a garden, but in the city. So that's what we created. Soon there will be 60 Simon of Sireen houses, and they are all with gardens in the city. And especially in the city with a garden.

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15:11You're listening to Heart and Soul from the documentary on the BBC World Service. I'm John Lawrenson and I'm in France with Laurent de Cherizé, the creator of France's Simon of Cyrene houses.

15:28One of the inhabitants of this house, A very blonde, quite elegantly dressed 28-year-old called Paul-Edouard de Pomerol takes me with Laurent to have a look at his apartment. Everyone has their own small flat because, says Laurent, you can't live happily with other people unless you have a private space of your own. In the lift on the way up, we're chatting away and suddenly Paul-Edouard exclaims, I was so alone before, so alone.

16:02He shows us his bedroom, the view from the window, the bathroom. The main room is quite big. On one wall is a giant poster of the tennis champion Roger Federer because, perhaps surprisingly, Paul Edouard is a keen tennis player.

16:23Paul Edouard tells me that whenever he feels like chatting to someone, he goes down to the communal kitchen. It's his turn to cook on Mondays. There are four houses like this one, close together. Each has 12 inhabitants, half disabled, half not, paid and volunteer staff mainly. There is, in the main house, a big sitting room, a big dining room, and another, bigger kitchen for when everyone eats together, which happens a couple of times a week.

16:55I'd actually bumped into Paul Edouard in the street as I was trying to figure out which door was the main entrance. And I didn't immediately understand that he had a disability, though he did maybe look a bit stiff in the neck area. But when he was 20, still a student, he had a near-fatal skiing accident that left him with permanent brain damage. I asked my best friend to film me because it was going to be my last lap of the day and I was going to do something pretty spectacular. He said, OK, just don't try and take the bump. I said, Don't worry yourself, man. I was completely serene, completely on the moon, in fact, and I went for the bump.

17:40In the film, you don't see me take off, but you do see me coming down, smashing into the snow. It's a really violent shock. You hear my friend laughing and saying, Paul-Ed, are you all right? He had no idea how serious it was. I was helicoptered to hospital where I was in a coma for a month. I woke up with brain damage. I spent two years in a wheelchair. I lost a lot of memory, but that's coming back bit by bit. You can work on that. Before coming here, I was living at home. But I felt quite lonely. My parents weren't in the position to be able to stop working, and there were my brothers and sisters to care about too.

18:20I didn't want to be a burden on my family and I wanted my own freedom. Were your ideas a bit dark at that time? Oui, oui, oui, elles étaient vraiment... Yes, very, very dark. I was so lonely I'd call the emergency services so they'd come and get me, because I was alone. I didn't know what to do. Should I kill myself? Or call the fire brigade? I called the fire brigade and had a six-point spell in a psychiatric hospital. Now you seem happy. I'm in heaven. Really? Heaven? Here, it's incredible because everyone helps everyone and we understand each other. Outside, when you're in the street and you're in a wheelchair, for example, people look at you in a strange way.

19:10They're afraid somehow. Here, everyone accepts everyone. and there's a joie de vivre, a joy in being alive. And here I have come back to life and live again with other people. It's fantastic. We show that life can be beautiful, that when we are together, life is beautiful. En étant ensemble, la vie est magnifique. After our chat, Paul Édouard goes off to play tennis and in the garden, a young, able-bodied man name of Pierre-Louis, helps a woman in her early 40s come and find me. Her name's Aude. She's very slight of build and has a hand that probably can't do the sort of things hands usually do, around which are wrapped some pretty bracelets and a rosary.

19:59She's in a wheelchair, she can't walk and she can't see. But apart from that, she's fine. And I'm not joking. In fact, she's a lot more than fine.

20:15My disability was hard to live with, especially when I was a child, because I didn't want to be disabled. I wanted to be like the other children, to run, to go and play. But I was very studious at school. I really liked school and I really threw myself into my classwork. I was lucky enough to have beautiful family with parents and sisters and grandparents around me. Some beautiful friendships too. So I was very lucky. I received a lot. And now, at Simon of Siren, I can try to give back a little of what I received. How can you do that? By trying to be present for the people I share this house with, by listening to them, by trying to share the happy moments and the less happy moments, to be with them with everything that I carry in my heart, with my faith.

21:10I told you, I've received a lot. I also received the gift of faith in the God of love in whom I believe deeply and who carries me each day. I like saying God of love because for me, that is really what God is. A God that loves me, a God that is with me wherever my life takes me, who is part of what I am, so that I become like him, so that his love comes and lives in my heart and shines for the people around me. In all humility, I am conscious of my limits, my bad points, of my fragilities. It's very touching, very convincing as well, to hear you say that living at this Simon of Cyrene house enables you to give back some of the love you've received.