Dr. Koenig's vision was to develop lively Camphill communities together with people who have special needs. His unique and effective approach focused on the abilities of each person, not the disabilities. Members of the communities teach and learn from each other in a process of mutual interaction. The needs of each person are met through living in a cooperative community - each individual contributing his or her own special gifts and talents. This vision lives on and each new generation in Camphill strives towards achieving it.

The International Camphill Movement consists of more than 100 communities in 22 countries. Camphill continues to work to create communities in which children, youth, and adults with special needs can live, learn, and work with others in healthy social relationships based on mutual care and respect.

	"In the early 1970s as we were beginning to understand the dismal circumstances we had created for human beings in the large public institutions of the US, many of us found ourselves searching for the countervailing impulse -- those who would include rather than exclude, integrate rather than segregate, accept rather than reject, value rather than devalue people with developmental disabilities. I and many others found..." More » "In the early 1970s as we were beginning to understand the dismal circumstances we had created for human beings in the large public institutions of the US, many of us found ourselves searching for the countervailing impulse -- those who would include rather than exclude, integrate rather than segregate, accept rather than reject, value rather than devalue people with developmental disabilities. I and many others found that impulse most notably reflected in the Camphill communities, and while for many of us the engagement was more intellectual than interpersonal, we found in Camphill communities reason to believe and understand that people with disabilities could be accepted and valued members of the communities in which they lived." Charlie Lakin Director of the University of Minnesota's Research and Training Center on Community Living

Camphill was established in North America in 1959. Today, Camphill in North America consists of ten independent communities that are home to over 800 people whose daily lives are full of vitality and accomplishment. These communities serve and impact thousands of other people in the surrounding areas. The ten communities live and work on over 2,500 acres of land, which is cared for utilizing organic and biodynamic methods.

Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D. was born in Austria in 1861. He studied modern science and philosophy, edited Goethe's scientific works, and developed anthroposophy which is a science of the spirit. Anthroposophy derives from two Greek words - anthropos, "human being," and sophia, "wisdom." As Theosophy ("Theo" "Sophia") means wisdom of God, or divine wisdom, Anthroposophy means "wisdom of the human being" or the wisdom that knows what it means to be human. In other words, it is a path of self-knowledge.

	"The healthy social life is only found when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the community the virtue of each one is living." Rudolf Steiner

In his Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, written in the last year of his life (1924), 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." Rudolf Steiner practiced this path, and his perceptions into the spiritual world, communicated in his books and lectures, laid the foundation and established the parameters of anthroposophy.

Activities arising from the initiatives of Rudolf Steiner include: Waldorf Education; Curative Education, Youth Guidance, and Social Therapy; Biodynamic Agriculture; Anthroposophical Medicine and Architecture; Eurhythmy (speech made visible through movement); Organizational Development; and many other art and therapy forms.