Join Us

Community as a word is a noun. However, communities in their very nature are actually more like verbs. 

A community cannot exist statically, it is an ever-changing organism. Keeping a community alive and healthy requires a lot of work and dedication of all people involved. This wonderfully challenging dynamic however seems to be one of the main factors why true communities have this healing power and this potential for individual growth.

Yet it is not a journey that everyone goes together from start to finish. There rather seems to be a flow of people coming in and going out of the community. With only a few people holding everything together it is possible to create a stable community that still lives in a dynamic flow – building many bridges in many directions.

May the circle be open, but unbroken.

Special Friends

We at Camphill follow a social-therapy approach. The heart of Camphill is our friends, while we merely facilitate things for them. Space begins with those friends, while co-workers simply work as bridges between their needs and negotiations with the world to fulfil them.

Camphill is ability-positive. Here, our friends live and work in an interdependent community, participating in the houses they live in on their own terms, while discovering the truest extent of our potential – an approach markedly different from the world at large, where our friends are forced to “keep up”, or worse, are left behind.

We work towards bridging a life of dignity and mutual respect for everybody, irrespective of their abilities.

We would like to give you some information regarding the admission procedure.

After we receive the completed application documents we will discuss the details in our co-worker’s team. Within a month you will receive an email from us. Via that mail either we will call you for an interview or we will express our inability to help you at this point of time.

The interview has to be attended by the candidate, both parents, siblings, and the local guardian. It will take half a day.

After the interview, once more a co-worker’s team will review the application and the interview. Then we will decide whether we find the candidate suitable for a trial period of three months.

During these three months, the contact with the family will be restricted to one phone call per week.

The last evaluation will possibly bring the final admission of the candidate into the residential community as a permanent member.

We have two compulsory holidays for all the residents: Two weeks in the Summer and two weeks after Christmas.

Your financial commitment: Monthly we expect a contribution of Rs 800 annually. This amount will be revised.

Contact us for a first meeting

Co-Workers

Co-working at Camphill is sharing a holistic life together with our friends.

Together we sit to eat and then divide up the pile of dishes to wash. Together we walk the dogs, change light bulbs, and sweep up the yard. Together we learn how to bake bread, stage a play, or harvest food-grain for tomorrow’s lunch.

We are co-workers because we work together with our friends. We are co-workers because the work we do is never done by us only – and its due credit is not ours alone.

Co-working at Camphill is a paid, full-time, on-site position. Responsibilities range from helping our friends in their day-to-day life (be it bathing them, helping them in their daily chores) to administrative duties. We look for individuals who can dedicate a minimum of three years, are swift at work, have problem solving approach and are willing to go the path of inner-schooling as part of the Social therapeutic impulse.

If you wish to have a better on-ground understanding of what Co-Working entails, we recommend you take some time out, and volunteer.

Download co-working application form

( After download fill the form and send to campindia@hotmail.com with all documents mention in the form )

Volunteers

A true community readily welcomes people to its fold and Camphill is no different in doing so.

Volunteering at Camphill is a short-stint residency position. Responsibilities range from assisting co-workers to carry out their duties, participating in our friends’ lives, and lending a hand wherever deemed fit.

What we seek in volunteers, is not expertise or experience – we simply seek a readiness to live among friends.

Dear volunteer from abroad

Hopefully, you have enough time to prepare for the big journey to India.
We are looking forward to your arrival and the common journey ahead of us.

  1. You need health insurance and a visa. You will have to apply for an E4 Visa. This is an employment visa for volunteers.
  2. Vaccinations are not compulsory but 1. a booster of DTP and 2. Typhoid vaccination is recommended. You can get these vaccinations also in India in case you have not done them yet.
  3. Please bring a mosquito net and mosquito repellent along with you.
  4. We will provide bed sheets and blankets. You can bring your own towels. Please bring thin ones, not the thick “Turkish” Towels…It is important to bring biodegradable Soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, etc. We recycle all our waste water and need to keep the water free of chemicals.
  5. Water is “gold” in our community. This means everyone has to use our water with care. Our daily baths are managed with half a bucket of water only. No showers.
  6. We do not use toilet paper. We have water sprays in all the toilets. The usage of toilet paper is not Indian and besides that, the paper would block our recycling unit.
  7. We are a vegetarian Non-vegetarian food cannot be consumed on campus. Eggs are allowed.
  8. Smoking, alcohol and usage of any kind of drugs is strictly prohibited inside the campus. Excessive use of alcohol or drugs, outside the community is also not allowed.
  9. Try to limit the number of electronic gadgets you bring along. We are basically a “mobile free “community.Volunteers can use their phones and laptops etc before 06.30 am, between 14.00 and 15.30 and after 20.30 pm. Otherwise, the phones have to stay in the bedrooms. We encourage social networking “life”.
  10. Our office has Wi-Fi, which you can use freely during the allotted hours.
  11. Do bring your musical instruments and hobby materials!
  12. We have a library where you can borrow books (English, German-Dutch, Kannada).
  13. We have certain expectations regarding the clothes you wear. Your clothes need to be without holes. Sexy clothes are not helpful in our social therapeutic community and need to be avoided. This means women have to wear clothes which cover their legs, breasts, and shoulders. The clothes should also not be tight. The traditional dressing style of the Indians is very colourful and the style supports our dressing code completely. Advice: do not bring too many clothes because you might want to get yourself some Indian outfits… We also have a stock of second-hand clothes from ex-volunteers…
  14. From 22.00 to 06.00 campus must be quiet.
  15. We wear different footwear indoors and outdoors. Two pairs of simple flip-flops will do.
  16. Bring at least one warm sweater and a few socks for the nights and wintertimes. Otherwise most of the year the weather is pleasant in the daytime. Like a European Summer…
  17. All volunteers receive weekly pocket money of Rs 500.
  18. Do provide us with your arrival details Flight number, Airlines, date and time. We arrange for a known taximan to pick you up from the airport. We will pay for the taxi. During the night the trip will be about 1 hour. In the daytime 2 to 2.5 hours…. Do send me also the phone number, which you use while traveling.
  19. Our phone number: 9945326740

All the best with your preparations! Good luck with the visa application. Do not hesitate to mail any questions which you still might have. We, from our side will do our level best to make you feel home as soon as you join us. It’s a great opportunity to join a life sharing community with special friends…

It has already enriched many lives before…

See you soon!
Warm regards from Francis Aradhya
on behalf of all the members of  “Friends of Camphill India”.

 

Download volunteer application form

( After download fill the form and send to campindia@hotmail.com with all documents mention in the form )

Think you can contribute in a different way?

Feel free to contact us! We have many friends, some of which we rarely see, some come frequently to help us. We are always happy to make new friends.

Find our contact details