Camphill Movement

The Camphill Movement is an initiative for social change based on the principles of anthroposophy. Camphill communities are residential communities and schools that provide support for the education, employment, and daily lives of adults and children with developmental disabilities, mental health problems, or other special needs.

There are over 100 Camphill communities in more than 20 countries across Europe, North America, Southern Africa and Asia.

The movement was founded in 1939 at Kirkton House near Aberdeen by a group that included Austrian paediatrician Karl König. It was König's view that every human being possessed a healthy inner personality that was independent of their physical characteristics, including characteristics marking developmental or mental disability, and the role of the school was to recognize, nurture and educate this essential self. The communities' philosophy, anthroposophy, states that "a perfectly formed spirit and destiny belong to each human being." The underlying principles of König's Camphill school were derived from concepts of education and social life outlined decades earlier by anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). Today there are over 100 communities worldwide, in more than 20 countries, mainly in Europe, but also in North America and Southern Africa.

The Camphill Movement takes its name from Camphill Estate in the Milltimber area of Aberdeen, Scotland, where the Camphill pioneers moved to with their first community for children with special needs in June 1940. Camphill Estate is now a campus of Camphill School Aberdeen. There are six Camphills in the Aberdeen area.

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