Patch Adams (social activist, citizen diplomat, professional clown and founder of the Gesundheit! Institute, Arlington, Virginia, USA), June 2007:
"Dear Ben, Dear Sabine,
What a thrill it is to have you here in West Virginia, to have a meeting of the tribes. How important it is for me and our project to have the infusion of hope you and your project radiate. Fundamental to idealistic projects, to keep enthusiasm over decades, is to know that you are not alone or crazy. I felt like a brother instantly.
I know all the things that come up in a community to make it thrive and to poison it and am amazed always to find the same things in other radical projects. All of us must face the vultures of the media and those unhappy with our styles. These are only mosquitos not volcanos. I love your radical dreams and actions and intensity to create a culture for your tribe that sustains you. I hunger to come be in your community and collaborate in our global outreach. Peace and justice are not unrealistic pipe dreams for dreamers lamenting on a couch. They are choices each can make for themselves and with a collective make in the world. I love you for your efforts."
Srinivasan Soundara Rajan (Barefoot College, Tilonia, India), June 2007:
"What is so remarkable about being and living in the Tamera Community is their genuine initiatives to work towards Peace amongst all irrespective of gender class and creed.
While representing Barefoot College, Tilonia at the Summer University 2006 one had first hand experience of living amongst the Tamera Community which reassured us that the peaceful and non-violent efforts taken up by the Tamera Community to establish a Durable Peace for All. This gives everyone of us hope that it is possible. Our best wishes from the Tilonia Family."
Ross and Hildur Jackson (GEN - Global Ecovillage Network, Denmark), June 2007:
"Tamera is one of the ecovillages in our global network that we always listen to, as you are taking very radical and innovative steps in many directions and with great courage—like your peacework, university and Solar Village project. Experimenting means finding new paths and this often awakens fear and opposition. But humankind needs this kind of experimentation. We hope you will continue with your courageous initiatives so that we may all learn from your successes and failures. As we have never visited Tamera, we look forward to seeing for ourselves sometime soon."
Gloria Cuartas (Human Rights Activist and former Major of Apartado, Colombia, awarded by the UNESCO with the "Mayors for Peace" Award), June 2007:
"Dear Friends:
From Colombia I am writing to the men and women who commit for a world which is free of violence, free of oppression and free of an economic structure in which the compliance with Human Rights can no longer be guaranteed. I am writing from the position of a woman who is working for peace, as an advocate of Human Rights; I was awarded by the UNESCO as "Mayoress of Peace". I am committing my life to accompany communities who defend their right to live on their land and to no longer be driven away in Colombia - a country which is drowning in and over 50-years-long civil war. Through this commitment I got to know Tamera in Portugal. My experience in the peace community of Tamera was a gift for my life like from mother nature. It brought calmness, friends and community into my life. I can count on a large group of friends who haven't left me alone, not even from Portugal, not even in the most difficult months of my life, when I have been in exposed to political, military persecutions, which I have suffered again and again during the last eight years and still do since I am part of the political opposition in Colombia, standing on the side of the suppressed. The community of Tamera hasn't left me alone when campaigns where launched against me, when I was defamed and threatened, which caused infinite suffering to me. In the community of Tamera I found good people who gave me their hands and their hearts and who have helped me to live. I found loyalty in the friendship.
I visit the Summer University of Tamera as a regular guest and I am in continuous communication. For this reason I know the community deeply. I have found a place there where I have contact with wonderful people, a place of integration, of knowledge, of continuous dialogue between men and women who commit their lives to find another possibility to make this planet in a more favourable way, and who, everybody for him/herself, contributes to the well-being of all fellow human beings wherever possible. Tamera is doing permanent research on new forms of relations between human beings and nature, between individual and collective life. This made me recommend this community to my friends, not only to those in Colombia but also in other parts of the world.
This community is definitely at a place where democracy is being built up. When I got to know this experiment my life as a woman found a new base. I could believe in solidarity, in freedom and in respect of life again.
I thank the community of Tamera for every day they have been using to protect my life and the lives of the people in the "Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó" (Peace Community San José de Apartadó) in Colombia. I thank for their daily endeavours, to bring together many people on a global level, to defend the poorest people in Colombia who are fighting for their right of life and peace.
Always count on my love and my gratefulness."
Sami Awad (Director Holy Land Trust, Bethlehem, Palästina), June 2007:
"We all seek peace, we all seek justice, and we all seek freedom. As a Palestinian living under a military occupation my entire life and have been involved in peace and nonviolence work for many years I have met many wonderful people; some are working peace, some are seeking peace and some are promoting peace; but it is very rare to find people who have committed themselves to truly living a life of peace. A few years ago I had the privilege and honor of meeting some of those who are truly living this dream even with all the challenges this world presents. Tamera for me is an example of what the world should be. It is a place to learn what it truly means to be a human being; it is a place to discover the power that lies within each one of us; it is a place to truly be what we all seek.
As a Palestinian activist I am proud by the fact that Tamera does not isolate itself and run away from the problems of the world but is dedicated as a community to healing the pain that we have become so used to inflicting upon ourselves as humans in the name of greed, hatred, and discrimination. The community’s involvement in Palestine, Israel, Colombia, India, and in many other places is for me a true light of hope for a better future for all of humanity.
I stand in support for those who seek peace and stand with great respect, admiration and humbleness to those who are living peace. My support to you my dear friends in Tamera in difficult times is not to encourage to be steadfast and not to worry you but to affirm to you that you are truly on the right path. The more difficulties you face the more you need to realize is that you (and we) are getting closer to changing the world. So be blessed, encouraged and even joyful in every difficulty you face.
May God bless you and your work and may your light never stop shinning."
Arun Gandhi (President, M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, University of Rochester, Rochester, USA), June 2007:
"Last year I visited Tamera and participated in the International Summer University. I found nothing objectionable about this community. I think it is a wonderful concept of creating communities based on love, harmony and peace. The insinuation that they could be instrumental in kidnapping children is absurd, to say the least. I whole-heartedly support the work of Tamera."
Peacevillage San José (Apartado, Colombia):
We do not have words to express how grateful we are for all the support you have given to us, for all you have taught us and for the amount of respect and solidarity arising in our cooperation. All of it for a better world! Your pioneering geist is a source of inspiration which nourishes our peace process. These are invaluable things we can only thank for.
We felt you very close, very close to our pain, to our work, to our joys, to our daily work. We do really see you as brothers, with great respect and a lot of heart. We know you are standing at our side."
Hans Jecklin (Switzerland), June 2007:
"Living communities like Tamera are indispensable fields of research for a peaceful co-existence of humankind on and with this planet within the limits of its natural resources. It is about learning how to live in a community of mature and self-responsible human beings for the good of the more comprehensive whole.
Community creates fear and awakenes negative projections, which often have their origin in our pre-rational memories, as a group phenomena which engulfes individuality. These archaic fears and prejudices which appear in many observes view on what is accomplished in future orientated communities like Tamera.
To me in Tamera a sacred fire of love for a more peaceful world is conceivable, which is looking for its visible expression for a united act. To support this creates joy in me!"
Pater Niklaus Brantschen (Swiss Jesuit and authorised Zen-Teacher. Former Leader of the Lasalle-Institute, Switzerland), June 2007:
"I have known the Healing Biotope Tamera for 7 years and follow up their performed research for Peace, sustainability and a more just world. I was twice a speaker at the international meetings in Tamera and I am deeply impressed by the work of these people.
The founders Sabine Lichtenfels and Dieter Duhm (who will become grandparents this year) and the whole group of Tamera, to which I am connected in friendship, earn my full respect for their engagement."
Max O. Lindegger (Ecovillage Designer/ teacher Crystal Waters, Australia), May 2007:
"I have visited Tamera on 3 occasions over the last couple of years. I have been teaching on the Ecovillage Design Education Course, presented at the Summer University and worked with the Ecology, Architectural and Planning teams. Exchanges via e-mail are ongoing. I found my Tamera friends open to experimentation in Agriculture, Architecture, Technology and Governance - the way we live together as communities. These are hard working people with a clear focus where they want to go and they are able to keep an open mind to new ideas. Their work in the field of Solar Technology( and others) is without doubt "leading Edge" and I'm convinced that the hard work will lead to solutions the wider population will benefit from in the future. The programmes at Tamera continue to bring out the best in young people - excellent and confident organisers. I miss my friends at Tamera - a place which has become a "Home away from Home" and I wish them all the best in finding solutions for a challenging future for this planet."
Jonathan Dawson (President GEN - Global Ecovillage Network), April 2007:
"I am writing in my capacity as President of GEN (the Global Ecovillage Network) and Executive Secretary of GEN-Europe. Tamera has been an active member of the network since its inception in 1995, for 12 years, during which time it has won the admiration and respect of its fellow members as a centre of innovation, especially in the fields of international peace work and solidarity and in the design of low-impact, energy-efficient settlements. Ecovillages worldwide also look to Tamera as a leader in empowering young people to move into positions of authority in designing and managing sustainability projects. Tamera has much to teach about the new, gentler and lower-impact types of living that we need urgently to develop."
Jürgen Kleinwächter (Physician, Leader of the solar technology company Sunvention, Lörrach, Germany), June 2007:
"On the 30th May my attention was drawn to the fact that the German newspaper “Bild” made a link in an article between the fate of the missing girl Madeleine Mc Cann and the “German sect” Tamera in the south of Portugal. I work intensively with Tamera for the construction of a “Solar Power Village” for poor rural regions in the south. (...)
Such, in Tamera and at other places, not only theoretical but experimentally developed Future Models are, by my opinion, from existential significance for the positive overcome of the huge challenges which the future demands for the whole humankind."
Annette Kaiser (Sufi-teacher and spiritual leader of "Villa Unspunnen", Switzerland), June 2007:
"Tamera searches another way - my respect for your work and devotion in the commonly built up Healing Biotope."
Gideon Spiro (Journalist and Peaceactivist, Israel), June 2007:
"During my time with the Tamera community, I found that I disagreed with the members on some issues as well as agreed with them on many others, but I never for a moment doubted their commitment to world peace in general or to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more particularly. Their work in these areas deserves unwavering support. Their plan to bring Palestinians and Israelis – among them artists from both sides who will perform together - to their community in Portugal, in order to encourage dialogue and understanding, is inspiring. And I urge anyone who can help the Tamera community in their worthy quest for peace to do so."
Monte Cerro
