The Grace Foundation was founded by Sabine Lichtenfels. Its aim is to provide support to areas in acute situations of crisis worldwide and to set up new life models for a future without war at suitable places.
Is there something that is stronger than hostility and violence? Is there a power of reconciliation which takes over and is effective even when we stand opposite our worst enemy?
In 2005, shaken by the threat of war in the Iran, Sabine Lichtenfels takes off on a six months long pilgrimage. Without money and under the motto of “A peace village instead of an armoured tank” she sets off from the South of Germany in the direction of Israel – mostly by foot. After having arrived in Israel, she leads the first Grace Pilgrimage through Israeli and Palestinian territories.
In her book, “Grace – Pilgrimage for a Future without War”, she writes: “Grace reminds you that the healing of our planet will be successful only if it is humanly possible to reconnect again with the true basic principles of life and love - with trust and truth. For this to be successful for all of human kind, depends on whether each one of us masters this challenge ”
Together with Benjamin von Mendelssohn and this attitude of “Grace” she leads the four-week pilgrimage with forty international participants through Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine. In an unusual way the human relations marred by fear, mistrust and prejudices start to soften. Ideological fronts begin to disintegrate and hitherto unimaginable solutions appear to become real options.
2007 a next Grace-Pilgrimage takes place, again in Israel/Palestine. This time the path takes the pilgrims through the desert, 330 kilometres on foot from Eilat into the occupied territories in the Westbank and via Bethlehem to come to an end in Jerusalem. Up to 170 people from Israel, Palestine and from overseas participated in it.
In the autumn of 2008 the Grace pilgrimage takes place in Colombia under the joint leadership of Sabine Lichtenfels and the Jesuit priest Padre Javier Giraldo. With at times up to 500 people, from Colombia, Peru, USA and Europe walk to the sites of violence, through virgin forest to support and strengthen the non-violent resistance of indigenous native peoples and a growing number of Colombian Peace Communities.
In addition to the yearly pilgrimages Sabine Lichtenfels together with an international team was able to launch a “Global Campus”. Its intention is to gather all knowledge needed for the development of self-sustained models of cohabitation; of energy production without exhausting natural resources; of a non-violent approach towards all beings and of the study of Grace, the knowledge of how lasting peace can successfully emerges between human beings.
Events of the “Global Campus” have so far taken place in Colombia, Palestine and in Tamera/Portugal.
In 2008 Sabine Lichtenfels founded the “Grace-Foundation – for the Humanisation of Money”. The purpose of this institution is to provide the financing for the actions taken and projects initiated for a future without war.
In the autumn of 2009 a pilgrimage is planned in Portugal which is to take the pilgrims from the stone circle of Evora to the stone circle of Tamera. It will be accompanied by a theatre tour of the Place of the Children of Tamera. The pilgrimage from stone circle to stone circle is to remind the pilgrims of the peace knowledge inherent in Portugal for millenniums.
From October 16th to 18th and to mark the end of the pilgrimage an international event to assemble potential sponsors will take place in Tamera. The pilot model for the new solar technology, developed and tested by Jürgen Kleinwächter and his team, shall be presented to the invitees. The pilot model, which is to precede the planed SolarVillage is an important next step for its realization. In the SolarVillage technological, ecological, social and ethical principles will converge, thus, helping to create a “Future without War” .The SolarVillage will comprise new forms of permaculture and aquaculture - including the cooperation with animals and all beings of nature. In this, Tamera is advised and guided by permaculture specialist, Sepp Holzer,
In the name of Grace the Earth does need new models of cohabitation in which the fighting among human beings and the fighting between man and nature can be sustainably terminated.
Each year on November 9th the Grace-Foundation organises the “Global Grace Day”. Meanwhile, this commemoration takes place in more than seventy places all around the globe reminding participants of the large family of life of a new world of solidarity and reconciliation.
We ask for support with the dissemination of Grace and with the funding of its actions.
The Grace Foundation for the humanization of Money