Building 2012: June 17th – July 22nd
Takedown 2012: August 18th – September 5th

For more than twenty years, at an altitude of four thousand six hundred feet (1400 m) in the Ticino Alps, we build our meditation camp each summer with a group of about 25 volunteers.

If you're interested in spirituality, feel like doing physical work in a group and love participating in the group process, this is a wonderful place to grow.

We eat, work, sing, walk, talk and share, have sauna, dance, laugh and celebrate with each other. Whether young or old, man or woman, handyman or not, everyone is welcome!

For building the camp we need five weeks, followed by four weeks of camp time and in the end everything has to be stored again. We are looking for people who stay all the time (from the middle of June until the beginning of September), but it is also possible to help for a shorter period (minimum 2 weeks).

Helping in the Work Camp, on Staff during Camp and the Work Study Program require you to apply in advance!
Please send us your Applications possibly BEFORE THE END OF MARCH 2012, especially if you want to help in the Workcamp.
Please don’t come without our prior approval, and apply as soon as possible! For more information about the application form, please write to Katharina: staff@zenithinstitute.com or read “Participation in Staff/Workstudy/Work camp” on this website.

>>To the application Form

Building and Takedown

When we first arrive at Campra in the middle of June, we will just find the mountains, the trees, the meadows, the cows. During the next five weeks, we will build platforms for about 10 big tents and many small tents, lay about two miles of water pipes, build furniture and toilets, put up lots of big and small tents—all this against the backdrop of a fantastic natural landscape, and together with others from many different countries with diverse cultures and languages.

To participate in the Work Camp means lots of physical work, healthy mountain air, sweating under the hot sun, but also sometimes shivering in the rain and cold wind. It means good food, simple community living, making friends, meditating alone or with others, discovering and rediscovering dormant qualities in one self, and in between again and again to be made speechless by the majesty of the mountains.
This time offers the possibility to unite spirituality, work and play in community. Together we will be creating a space and atmosphere that will welcome the invited teachers and all participants, and offer them the possibility to create and follow the different programs in a supportive environment.

To express something of the spirit of the Sufis: service to the community, tolerance for others, finding joy in working together, the opening of the heart, and respect for being different—all these are what make a spiritual community.

To support this process, there is time and place for daily meditations, and in the evening we will have group activities such as Zikr, singing and making music, "sharings" or other activities, on the weekend (weather permitting) also a nice hike in the mountains.

Everything that has been constructed throughout the Work Camp has to come down in a period of about two and a half weeks after the camp. We invite all participants and also all staff members to help us in this task, be it for the weekend, for some days after the camp, or even better for the whole time. We are happy for every helping hand.

This also offers a good and spontaneous opportunity to feel your body again after an intense time of meditation, to be in a community or simply to spend some more time in those marvelous mountains in good company before we all go out into the world again. After the abundance of experiences in the camp, it is a very nice process to deconstruct, pack and store everything. We wrap up the exterior as well as the interior, and in the end there are again only mountains, meadows, and cows - the true natives.

Camp participants helping with the takedown will get reduction for one of the weeks in next year’s camp: 25% for one week of takedown, 50% for two weeks.

Requirements

For Workcamp and Takedown we are looking for people who enjoy living and working in community and who are not afraid of physical work.

Of course handyperson’s skills are welcome, but it's possible to learn. We welcome as well everyone who feels called to support our work with whatever gift they bring. We are always in need of creative and flexible cooks who would like to take care of about 25 hungry workers and other people who would take care of our household. The Camp just needs a lot of helping hands.

This is a time of intense and concentrated work, and in general not a time and place to bring small children. During buildup and takedown we will be living in dormitories in a wooden cabin near the campsite, if you feel you would need some more privacy, you can also pitch your tent in nearby with a view on the mountains.

Some Rules and Regulations

• As a participant in the Workcamp, you will have the possibility to continue working during the camp and/or participate in one of the programs for reduced prices, depending on the length of participation in building up. (5 weeks of work camp will give one week of free program; less will be given in proportion.)
• It is also possible and welcome to participate in the Work Camp just for 2 or 3 weeks, but a minimum of 2 weeks is suggested.
• Staff members who stay from the beginning of Work Camp through the Camp until the end of Takedown will receive a donation for travel expenses.

If you would like to know more about these regulations,
please contact Katharina at staff@zenithinstitute.com