Home | About Camphill School Hermanus  
 
Hemel en Arde Valley, Hermanus
CAMPHILL SCHOOL
PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL AND DAY SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIALEDUCATIONAL NEEDS P.B. 68, HERMANUS
7200 South Africa
Phone. (028) 313-8214
Fax (028) 313-8238

school@camphill-hermanus.org.za
www.camphill-hermanus.org.za
 

The Camphill Community Hermanus is divided into the Camphill School Community and the Camphill Farm Community.
The School Community as the name suggests is a school for disabled children. The Farm Community is a home and workshop for disabled adults. 
School and Farm are finically and organisationally separate organisations which share the same board.

Introduction

In 1939, Dr. Karl König (1902-1966), a noted Viennese pediatrician fled together with a small group of fellow refugees from the nazi-regime and established a school and home for mentally retarded children at Camphill Estates, Scotland. In 1952, in South Africa, Mrs. May Redman, who had retired in Hermanus, started a school on Dawn Farm for a group of handicapped children which included her son. Dr. König sent a teacher and in 1957 he welcomed the school into the Camphill Movement.
Camphill School is a centre for children in need of special care: Down's Syndrome, brain-injured, post-encephalitic, autistic and emotionally disturbed children. Here these children live, learn and play in a rural setting, growing up in small family units, attending our special Waldorf School, and enjoying all the richness of nature. A permanent staff of co-workers, serving as teachers, therapists and house-parents, live with the children in family groups, providing security in which the children can express themselves fully. Every year young people join us as co-workers for a period of a year or longer.

Members (co-workers) of the community and adults with mental disabilities (villagers) live together as extended families in comfortable homes, varying in size from 9-19 people, forming a supportive community based on shared responsibility and caring. This lifestyle helps to foster mutual help and understanding, as people live and work side by side, day by day, each learning from the other. A distinctive feature of Camphill life is that the co-workers are dedicated volunteers who receive no remuneration other than basic living needs. Co-workers provide home and family support through their roles as "house-parents", direct the village's administration and management, and provide inspiring leadership for the various work places.
Village life has its own regular rhythm. Weekdays are structured by the morning and afternoon work sessions in homes and workshops and three family-style meals shared in each house. Most evenings are filled with activities which include adult education, concerts, shopping in our distribution-store and house-evening where concerns can be shared on a house level. Weekends have their own pace, including outings and trips, Saturday Bible evenings, Sunday services, choir rehearsals and once a month on Sunday evenings the whole community meets for the Village Assembly, a forum run by each house community in rotation, which provides an opportunity for everyone to voice their views and concerns.