Welcome to Commonweal!
Commonweal is a nonprofit health and environmental research institute in Bolinas, California. Founded in 1976, Commonweal conducts programs that contribute to human and ecosystem health — to a safer world for people and for all life. We do that through a program focus in five areas:
- We help people with cancer through the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, a weeklong residential support program for people with cancer, and through the Commonweal Cancer Project, our resource and educational work for cancer patients and health professionals.
- Through the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, we help physicians, medical students and other health professionals who wish to restore the principles of healing to the practice of medicine and practice with a deeper sense of meaning, satisfaction and lineage. ISHI conducts faculty development trainings for Healer's Art faculty, healing workshops for the public, and CME workshops and retreats for physicians at the Commonweal site. ISHI's Healer's Art curriculum is presently offered in 53 medical schools.
- We help children and young adults in the juvenile justice system through the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, which advocates for reforms in California juvenile justice.
- We support local, national and international initiatives that contribute to human health and a healthy environment, including the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, Health Care Without Harm, The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center, Women's Health and the Environment Initiative, the Commonweal Garden, the Commonweal Fair Growth Program, and the Commonweal Ocean Policy Program.
- The New School allows you to join conversations with remarkable people working to encourage awareness of the deep interconnectedness of personal and planetary health. These collaborative learning events explore a wide range of issues in health, education, science, the arts, the environment, culture and consciousness. You can participate in person, by teleconference, or via the Internet. Joining the New School is free and is a good way to connect to Commonweal's work.
An integral part of Commonweal's work is done at the Commonweal Retreat Center which houses up to twenty people. The Retreat Center is available for personal or professional retreats, conferences and workshops when not in use for Commonweal programs.
Unless otherwise noted, all photography by Dr. Bob Rufsvold