Welcome to the Cheval et Forêt website !
Our association has been working since 1999 in the Brussels-Capital region. We are based at the Rouge-Cloître farm, on the edge of the Sonian forest. Our aim is to promote the use of the draught horse in the urban environment.
Every day our four draught horses – Bart, Jeff, Flup, and Ouragan – work with us towards that overall objective. Our activities fall into four broad sectors :
The horse in education
Cheval et Forêt offers educational activities for learning about the environment. We have developed a whole set of discovery-activities, each with a draught horse playing a part, and each adapted to the ages and needs of the audience – we go to schools and also to various associations.
The working horse
Our four horses (and two donkeys) have regular work in some of Brussels’ green spaces : emptying the dustbins, maintaining the grass, picking up the hedge-cuttings, …
The leisure horse
Our horses, along with our sheep, cocks, hens, donkeys and ducks, breathe life into the Rouge-Cloître site. They take people for a tour in a horse-drawn carriage, they are special partners of our local senior citizens, they provide high quality manure to the gardeners of the neighbourhood. To see our past and upcoming events, take a look at our calendar.
The social horse
Our association also has a project of social inclusion for young people with a mild mental handicap. Today Julien, Eva, Sandra, Ibrahim, David and Audry will be participating fully in all the projects described above. And they also stage special activities for handicapped people. The Cheval et Forêt team – thats them !
A modern heritage from the past
Cheval et Forêt has as one of its social objectives the promotion of the draft horse in the Brussels region ; and it has a particular place of honour for the Belgian heritage that lies behind the project.
For those who are interested in that heritage we have some links in the following text which tell the story of some Brussels people who like us have chosen as their working partner the draft horse:
• The Vandergoten family