Social Therapy is the term used for the beneficial dynamics of a life-sharing community based on the ethos of Camphill. The ethos is focused on upgrading the dignity of people with developmental challenges. But more than that, by helping each other, every person gets the opportunity to grow as an individual.
We are Friends of Camphill India,
a Life Sharing Community
At Camphill we work together. We celebrate, we explore and we create together. And everyday we share our healthy homemade food together.
As friends we care for each other. We look after each other and help each other. And sometimes we also fight. But in the end we are one loving, life sharing community.
Growing together - as Individuals
Our residence lies south of Bengaluru in the village Bannerghatta. Protected from the noise of the nearby main road, we live in our two houses Antaranga and Santvana in the midst of trees, bushes and flowers. The area also holds our workshop building Panchanga and a garden in which we grow our own produce.
We are a life sharing community. We are Special Friends, Indian Coworkers and an ever-changing team of international Volunteers. We also share the ground with four cows, four dogs, one cat and eight chicken.
Our community is built on the ideas of Anthroposophy and the social impulse of the Camphill Movement. We work with the methods of Social Therapy and thus strive to allow every member of our community, Special Friend, Co-worker or Volunteer, to grow as an Individual.
Building Bridges – sung by the community
A glance at Social Therapy
Social Therapy is an impulse of healing. The tools lie in the metamorphosis of our soul-forces (thinking, feeling, and willing.). The main focus is to unfold well-being for each and every member of the community.
Only the help from person to person – the encounter of ego to ego, the realisation of the other person’s individuality without judging his confession, beliefs, world view and political standing – simply the direct and one to one encounter of two personalities – is able to create this kind of curative education that is able to meet the threat to the inner human being in a healing manner.
However, this will only be possible on the basis of a thorough and heart-felt wisdom.
– Karl König, founder of the Camphill Movement
Source: https://www.karlkoeniginstitute.org/en/leading-thoughts.asp
A quick comment on our strive for sustainabiliy
Since the beginning the Camphill impulse was a future-oriented one. It sought to find a healthy way of human interaction facing the social crisis of World War II.
In facing the challenges of today our relationship to nature is getting more and more important next to our relating to other human beings. In our community, through life sharing we seek to strengthen our listening ability. By that we mean to become aware of messages that are sent to us by our environment. And of course we try to react to what we hear.
We try to save water wherever possible; we have a biological recycle unit for our waste water. The recycled water we then use to water our garden in which we grow our own produce. We consume organic and home cooked food. And very important: We strive to avoid plastic waste and we sort and clean all waste that we produce. Food waste is given to the animals.
As of now, we are not self-sustaining. However, we are currently building a second community in Mysore which will also hold a fully functioning farm. We hope that this will enable us to become self-sustaining.
Donate
As a non-profit organisation we rely heavily on donations.
If you want to support our work in general
or want to contribute your part to the Mysore project,
please donate any amount.
Learn more about how your donation helps us – and please, do visit us if possible.
We are always happy to welcome new people and even if you can not share life with us, we also have many friends outside our community.