The Camphill Movement

Rudolf Steiner, 1861-1925
courtesy of Adriana Sassoon @ Wordpress

Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D, was born in Austria in 1861. He studied science and philosophy, and over the course of his life he developed "Anthroposophy". This term is derived from two greek words, 'anthropos', which means 'human being', and 'sophia', which mean 'wisdom'. What Steiner meant for the term anthroposophy to mean, was the wisdom of the human being. Steiner wrote, "Anthroposophy is a way of knowledge -- a cognitive path -- that leads the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe".

After Steiner's death, Dr. Karl Koenig, a pediatrician and educator from Austria, was inspired by Steiner's work and founded the first Camphill community for children with special needs in 1939. The idea behind Camphill communities is to foster learning and development through day-to-day life activities and experiences for people with developmental disabilities. Camphill communities allow each person, with or without developmental disabilities, to share and offer their own special gifts and talents to the rest of the community. Currently there are over 100 Camphill communities in 22 countries. Check out the Camphill website to learn more.
The JEM group will be focusing on two of the Camphill communities that are closely connected to the Ecovillage movement, while not being officially recognized by the GEN organization. Both Camphill Solborg in Norway and Camphill Kimberton in Pennsylvania possess many of the same qualities as the other ecovillages previously featured. Even though these Camphill communities are not official ecovillages, I find it necessary to include them in our research because they are living a low impact lifestyle, one that is not only healthy for people with disabilities, but healthy for the environment as well.