inlumine • Stories from the Founding Era

About the job

The stories you can read here in a relaxed sequence are based on a lecture by Martha Heinimann and Sylvia Flury on the occasion of the opening of the new Sonnmatt building in Langenbruck. An institution that still – sixty years after its founding – empathetically cares for the support of disabled people.

Both ladies look back on an exciting and eventful history that led to the founding of today’s inlumine foundation, the sponsor of the Sonnmatt house and the "Im Rebgarten" house in Baselland. Both ladies were themselves directly confronted with the problem of the lack of care places for their disabled children. A solution had to be found, and many of the topics they addressed still concern and challenge us today as they did then.

Martha Heinimann, on whose initiative parents of disabled children were convened in 1964 to found the Sonnenhof Arlesheim parents’ association, later served as the association’s secretary. Sylvia Flury was the wife of the first president of the parents’ association, Dr Theodor Flury.

As the current secretary of the inlumine foundation, I would like to show you, dear readers, that it has never been easy to commit oneself to the concerns of disabled people. Perhaps the stories will help all those involved in disability support to learn something from them. For my part, I take away that it is always worth engaging personally and not shying away from great challenges.

It often takes courage and perseverance, but it pays off.

Because the essence of the history of the parents’ association as well as the inlumine foundation remains primarily the stories of those cared for.

This is how my predecessor introduced her lecture, and I could not put it better.

"They (the cared-for) are the core, with their personality, unmistakable, honest, often radiant, sometimes moody, in need of love and radiating love."

Even though the voluntary inlumine foundation board today no longer consists of affected parents, it is solely the entrusted persons and residents who motivate us, the foundation board, the institution leaders and employees every day to give our best.