Monte Cerro has ended. The three year experiment for future peace training which was created by the Peace Research Center Tamera ended on April 30th 2009. It was designed to provide answers to core questions which come up while building a peace culture: In which ways was the experiment a success? What has changed in Tamera – and what in the people involved? What is the position of the Plan of Peace Villages today? Which new questions have risen? And which new plans are now standing in front of us?

Five years ago Tamera sent out a text to peace workers all over the world. It was the Project Declaration 1 for the Future Experiment Monte Cerro, written by Dieter Duhm: “Ecological and Human Structures for the Healing of Life on Earth.” 200 people were invited to live together, think together and expose themselves to the most important global questions and find answers on a local level. Everyone was asked to “commit the changes needed in the world on themselves.”

First some personal thoughts: I was impressed and fascinated by the plan of this experiment, and I decided to move to Tamera. As a journalist I wanted to live and to get to know from the inside what would happen when 200 people form a conscious community body in which everything which happens is put into relation to the world. I was looking forward to living in such a conscious way, as a reflection of the world. Following the insights of the holographic reality, I was positive that everything that happens in the whole has its analogies in every part of the whole. And that processes in a group can serve to understand the world and to help find solutions.
If what we call universal will for peace exists – and I am sure it those – then such an experiment must be the right thing to “download.”
And so I decided to move to Tamera and become part of the experiment.

However, it did not go so smoothly. The dynamic that emerges when starting a community experiment is dramatic. New possibilities, new tasks and connections, but also chaos, love, anger, jealousy, painful insights about oneself – so many things happen when people start to come together.
“The crisis area of our time is between human beings,” Dieter Duhm said.
“Community is the organ of the planet which has been destroyed the most,” Sabine Lichtenfels stated. To heal this wound means to also go through times of chaos and dynamics.

Sometimes it was surprising what kind of miracles a community can perform. Sometimes you raised your hand in horror when seeing what from time to time happens when communication fails. Well prepared projects could end in a disaster, and other plans, which were prepared casually blossomed, unfolded and had a great impact.
At the same time, in the radicality which is necessary when we look at the world, we need to go further and look at the coming steps in creating a future without war.
The experiment began with a huge starting power and readiness for improvisation. This was necessary because the funding for the amount necessary to build an experimental village and alternative University had yet to come.
After all, we have to be amazed about how much Tamera has changed during those three years. Just the number of people currently living in Tamera, and the infrastructure shows that the project has stepped into a new level.

The specialists that came – among them Jürgen Kleinwächter (Solar Power), Sepp Holzer (Permaculture) and Heiner Lippe and Gernot Minke (Clay Architecture), Marko Pogacnik (Geomant) – helped create a professional base in many fields needed in a world project.
The permaculture water landscape is already a model for the recultivation of devastated landscapes.
The solar energy developments which presently are put together to a first test phase of a Solar Village show that also in the post-industrial era of a global culture of peace villages high-tech research can be possible: the solar high-tech of an international Open Source research community.
The auditorium “Aula” - a gorgeous straw bale clay building with a green roof – Tamera’s “Cathedral,” as well as some other experimental clay buildings, show possibilities for energy saving buildings, ecological and close to Earth ways. Some futuristic shapes of shade roofs – designed by Martin Pietsch – indicate in which direction the architecture of the future could also develop.
The stone circle of Tamera was built as a holistic piece of art and a spiritual center for the community in which all aspects of a peace culture become visible.
On the Children’s Place a School of Hope with kindergarten, art place, language classes, theater training and music education developed – carried out by a group of committed adults in close cooperation with the parents.
A sanctuary for the reconciliation of people and animals, an art center with gallery, and an extended guest center is in preparation.

At the same time with developing the site, Tamera - the globalization of the project of the Healing Biotopes started. Sabine Lichtenfels and her Grace team carried out several peace pilgrimages and actions through crisis areas. Committed friendships to peace workers worldwide emerged.
Indigenous people, groups of non-violent resistance, liberation movements, youth leaders, conscientious objectors, people against war, and peace villages belong to this strong network – this includes Colombia, the Middle East, India, Tibet, the US. In the name of Grace – became a keyword of a peaceful ethics which has as its core perception, forgiving and the insight: There are no enemies. I could just be the soldier, the fighter, the person from the other side.

All in all, about 150 students took part in Monte Cerro Peace Education, which was carried out by the young generation of Tamera. In their curriculum, there was theory and practice of inner and outer peace work, working in the technological and ecological building of peace villages, taking part in help actions and – most important – community building, communication and group leading.
The contemporary cooperation with the Gaia University and the hope that official certificates could be provided has not worked out so far.

The cooperation of the generations was one of the highlights of Monte Cerro: Behind the young teachers stand the more experienced older people of the community. Their cooperation has created a complementation which creates this mixture of experience and enthusiasm.
Project founder Dieter Duhm developed - with his tired-less engagement - visions, ideas and concepts, and always kept our connection with the world awake. Sabine Lichtenfels as a spiritual teacher and an international peace ambassador is a person who can create an atmosphere of trust, also in the most difficult situations: Trust as a precondition for communication, understanding and reconciliation.
The two of them created the vision of the planetary peace villages – and for the inner peace work, the inner switch which is so crucial for every peace worker.
Art courses, love school, political Ashram – intensive times and courses at different places gave spaces of experience which deepened the peace education in a way which can not be taught in school books.

“Monte Cerro, a story of success,” is Friedemann’s summary; he is one of the students who reports of chaotic times with many improvisations. “We called ourselves Peace-workers in Training – and that makes me very proud. It gave me the feeling to participate in a world experiment.”
He recalls his way into the community, his learning way in love, in clear communication, as man, as father.

Mena, a Portuguese student: “The biggest product of the three years is not the water landscape, nor the solar technology, it is us. It is the changes that we as students have made through the experience of being part of a community and a global movement. I learnt to be ready to change myself and my belief sentences again and again. Now there is a number of people who understand what community means in the inner, and who are always able to – even in critical situations, even in crisis areas – to stay with truth, solidarity and mutual support.”

In the three years the world has changed as well. It is becoming more and more obvious how necessary new solutions are – for a different way of living together between people and nature. To develop this we need a global coming together of worldwide peace forces.

“Pachamamization instead of globalization,” Arkan said, a shaman of Peru and the US who visited Tamera for Easter. With this he described a globalization in a female manner, connected with “Pachamama,” Mother Earth, for the opening of the deep female original powers of life. From this point, from this depth we have to see the perspectives of healing and to develop them.
In this Easter conference at the end of Monte Cerro it was about the next steps of the Project of the Healing Biotopes.

Due to all these things many other are already developing. Already in the first year of Monte Cerro, the keyword Global Campus came up: “A worldwide peace and community education at different places on the planet, everywhere peace villages and Healing Biotopes shall be built.” The Grace Foundation for the Humanization of Money was founded; the first meetings of this peace initiative took place in Colombia, Tamera, and the Middle East.

The next project which shall gain power is the SolarVillage and the planned TTT Platform for Technology, Training and Transfer. Here, the material base for the peace culture is laid, the social, ecological and technological core for autonomous peace villages which will not only compile peace among people, but also peace between humans and nature. This means concretely sustainable and decentralized ways of energy production, food production, as well as our relationship to animals and our embedding in nature.
The SolarVillage – putting all elements together in an overall model – shall be the common work of international peace activists, visionaries, technicians and scientists; a community initiative by people who have learnt to use even conflicts as sign posts and who do not react with anger or fear but with calmness, solidarity and creativity.

Monte Cerro has ended, the peace education goes on. Four days, after the students received their symbolic certificates, once more a big group of people has the wish to learn a peace profession.