My name is Mathis, I am 19 years old and work as a volunteer at Staffansgården in Delsbo, Sweden. Staffansgården is a camphill community for people with mental disabilities. Here, the 30 villagers live in 6 houses with each 5 people. My job as a volunteer is to join the villagers in their daily workshops and support them there, for example our own wood shop, weavery or our bakery. The articles they produce in the wood shop are being sold in stores in Stockholm and their own Christmas market, the books are sold to Waldorf schools around the country. In addition, I join the afternoon activities like going swimming or dancing and live in one of the houses.
In my time here I noticed that Staffansgården creates an environment where people are supported to thrive, based on their needs and strengths — something society as a whole could learn from.
One thing I thought of immediately is the way the coworkers and villagers try to find suitable activities and jobs the villagers enjoy and can develop within. Our society is good at pointing out what someone is bad at. Here the focus is on finding things that people are good at, are enjoying and are eager to get better at.
While some are very efficient when it comes the handcrafts, for example when making books and enjoy working alone others prefer a more communicative work like baking together. In addition, our society has to change in a way so that the choosing of workplaces isn’t solely based on productivity and profits of companies but focuses more on individual needs. Here at Staffansgården, it’s not only about skills and interests but also to find the right work climate. If workplaces would pay more attention to that or schools would focus more on finding out in which kind of working environment people would thrive in,
society would gain a lot. This way, people wouldn’t be forced to fit in but society would become more aware of individual needs and the working environment would adapt in a more equal direction.
Another thing is that the villagers are encouraged to try new workshops from time to time and change their workplace basically. I think the idea in our society that you’re supposed to find one job you then do for the rest of your life is not a realistic and healthy one for many people. Like at Staffansgården, I think people should try more different lines of work during their life because
we’re not one dimensional beings. Both aspects are in my opinion a lot better integrated here at Staffansgården.
Mathis 2025.
EN 
SV