Het Droomhuis aan de Dijk: The Dream House at the Dike

Since 2007 october 1st nine young handicapped residents are living in  the Dream House  and three apartments “at the Dike“ in Wageningen (Netherlands). The youngsters and the staff really enjoy the wonderful conditions in this housing initiative. A group of active parents started up this plan in 1999.  They needed a lot of patience and perseverance and had to overcome a lot of unsuspected problems. At the end the building process was a ‘piece of cake’, that took place within a year. With a huge ‘neighbourhood party’ in 2007 the Dreamhouse was opened.

The ‘Dreamhouse” is in the middle of the centre of the little university town of Wageningen. It is also situated next to the beautiful floodplains of the river Rhine. A house in the midst of society and close to nature. The youngsters enjoy as well the entertainment of city-life, market and shops as well as the quietness and beauty of nature around them. Parents, brothers, sisters and friends are always welcome in the Dreamhouse. The youngsters have a beautiful room for themselves and have within limits space for their own choices. Most of the time they enjoy together the common living room, kitchen, snoozle-room and the beautiful garden. The house is perfectly adapted to their possibilities and restrictions and is a suitable place, where they are surrounded with all the care and attention that they need.

This project is realized in cooperation with the Community of Wageningen, The Housing Foundation ‘Woningstichting Wageningen” and the care-organisation ‘s Heeren Loo. The architect of the building was ‘Ontwerpbureau Pieter Roza’.

Also in Englisch we want to express our sincere feelings of thanks and gratitude to all the people that helped us to realize our dream. Of course we want to help other parents, that are having the same dream for their handicapped children.

Even if you don’t understand Dutch, you get a pretty good impression of the process of realisation of the Dreamhouse, by viewing the pictures in our Newsletters 1 – 13, that we published from 2002 – 2009 (see the links below).

Nieuwsbrief 1 (april 2002)
Nieuwsbrief 2 (november 2002)
Nieuwsbrief 3 (july 2003)
Nieuwsbrief 4 (july 2004)
Nieuwsbrief 5 (winter 2004-05)
Nieuwsbrief 6 (summer 2005)
Nieuwsbrief 7 (autumn 2005)
Nieuwsbrief 8 (summer2006)
Nieuwsbrief 9 (autumn 2006)
Nieuwsbrief 10 (spring 2007, 2006 in 'header' is a mistake)
Nieuwsbrief 11 (summer 2007)
Nieuwsbrief 12 (autumn 2007)
Nieuwsbrief 13 (winter 2008): review after one year Droomhuis!

beheerder van deze website: Gabriel Enkelaar; laatste bijstelling