In the year 2020 our 24th summer camp takes place. While the first two camps took place in Sweden and later on in Denmark, we have been in Germany for many years now. The first camps were a colorful mix of different nationalities but in the last years in many countries national camps arise, so our camps can help to build new communities everywhere in Europe on the base of peace an non-violence.

Our participants
Our participants are from all ages. Babies, hopeful, young adults and elderly
people who enrich the camp with their life experience. Many participants
come back every year so every year we feel as if we were on a family
meeting: with old and new family members and friends.
Some of the people who come to us live already in communities, others live on their own and want to experience during camp the idea and the support of a bigger community.

Community
Our summercamp is part of our Circleway-Tribe, which has grown over the years. During camp every participant stays in a clan. The clans are the heart of the camp. It is the place where we can begin to try a new, hopeful way of
living together. “Being together” is a good contradiction to our inner and
outward trends of isolating ourselves. When we come together we can
succeed at everything! In our camp we use "supportive listening" (listeningexchange) and Circles of attention to get a deeper understanding of ourselves and to have a bigger life. It is a very hopeful way to deal with our topics and to connect with our fears when we are not alone. Just as we are sharing our joy about our development and our success with each other.

Native American wisdom
As an elder of the Assonet band of the Wampanoag Nation Manitonquat
enriches us with stories of his tribe and the wisdom which he acquired
through contact with many other people of indigenous background all over the
world. To Manitonquat it is very important to enlighten the common human issues and solutions of problems of human beings of all ages and backgrounds.
With the vision of the Circleway Manitonquat has established his very own connection between spiritual indegenous knowledge and elements of "supportive-listening", which we would not do justice to, if we called it an “Indian Camp”.

Our programm:
Every morning it will be time to enjoy the clans, in which you can have the
breakfast together and do a talking stick circle. Later on we gather in a
big circle to praise mother earth and to thank her for everything she gives
us. Afterwards Manitonquat talks about his vision of the “Circleway”, how it
was born and how it can enrich our lives. We listen to the original instructions
which Manitonquat has learned from his elders. They can - even today - be a
precious support for our coexistence. After lunch and a break there are
workshops which last until the evening. After the common supper in your clan we meet to sing, laugh together and celebrate our communal life.

Workshops
There will be introduction workshops to "supportive-listening" (exchange of caring listening and attention). On the base of Co-Counseling there will be other workshops, too: for example about living in communities, about how to reach our goals, about leading, being a man, a woman, a young adult, about sexism, adultism, racism, about families and much more. These workshops will be led by Manitonquat, Ellika. Emmy Rainwalker and skilled supportive-listening-teachers. These offers are a good support for us to free ourselves from hopelessness, old patterns and results of oppression by society, so we can live the life we wish to have.


Language in the workshops:
Our workshops are translated from English into German and the other way
round so that everybody gets the chance to understand everything and we
can feel connected to each other in spite of different mother tongues. The
translation is a collaborative work for us, therefore it is split up into short
passages which are led by different translators and their supporters.

Parents and children
Due to the long-term collaboration with Emmy Rainwalker we have
developed a special way of support for parents and children. In this year
there will be workshops for parents again. In cooperation to this we offer
very helpful workshops for adults, in which they can experience how
playing with children can encourage their emotional balance and how we
ourselves can keep a good attention while playing. In this framework our
special understanding and practice of childcare was born and improved:
Together we organize a childcare, which is geared to give a living and
supporting companionship to the children, in which we encourage them to
experience their autonomy and creativity. For this reasons many parents
and adults come to our camp again and again for many years. During the
whole camp the clan supports the togetherness with the children so that the
responsebility which in our society would usually weigh upon the parents
alone is shared amongst the participants of the camp. Let’s find it out together
how well this can work.

Leadership
In our camp we would like to experience another meaning of leadership:
For us leadership means that we all keep thinking like leaders. As a
challenge each one takes responsibility and gets the chance to grow on
the trust offered by the other participants. In the process we support each
other the best we can. Everyone does his or her best and in this process
we learn from each other. In our camp lots of small and bigger jobs need
to be done that make us as a community grown together and let us think
well about each other. That’s an important fundament of building our
community. It helps us feeling close and visible with our strength to go into
leadership and accept leadership. Needless to say that this happens with as much fun and support as possible! In the workshop we get to know this different form of leadership. In our clans we can try to build up circles and to be operative in it, solve conflicts in another, more healthy way and to get closer to each other. In the Clan-Leadermeeting we bring together our experiences, archievements and difficulties and can recieve support. Some of our participants begin to build up their own circles at home afterwards to enable more of community in their everyday life.

Non-violent communication
The “non-violent communication” created by Marshall Rosenberg is another
element in our camp which Manitonquat and many of us more and more slip
in our interactions and processes. It is a way of communicating with each
other which helps us to connect with others in a caring, rational, hopeful and
bright way. Talking stick circles, "supportive-listening" and non-violent communication complete each other in a wonderful way.

Participant workshops
In every camp there is time, in which the participants themselves can offer
workshops to share the things they like and do well with us. When we show
our talents we can see each other in our full beauty and power. Here we can
try ourselves and take new talents with us when we go home.

Play and fun
On every camp we have playtime for everybody, a talent show, the clan song
evening, stories from the Wampanoag tribe and appreciation circles.
Furthermore there is time and place to dance, sing and talk by the fire.

If there are News, we’ll send a newsletter. If you’d like to join the distribution list, please mail to: info@circleway-germany.de

New this year:
The pre- and postcamp is included in your contribution!

As always we split the incoming works during camp such as cooking, childcare, translation, etc. in collective sense. Therefore we set up a joblist for all smaller duties and you can register via internet before the camp.

In the evening at the beginning of the main camptime the clan-building
will take place for everyone joining the camp. People arriving later will get
invited into the existing clans - but it is advisable to join the ceremony for a
comfortable arriving in the camp.

We’re looking forward to lovely, powerful and inspiring circleway-camp 2020,
with all of you wonderful people!