Roland Spendlingwimmer

Roland Spendlingwimmer, was born in 1946 in Freistadt, Oberösterreich, he went to primary school in Neumarkt in Mühlkreis. 1966 Spendlingwimmer completes successfully the Freistädter Gymnasium and one year later he begins to study at university for natural resources and applied life sciences in Vienna. After 4 years he cancels his agriculture studies and assumes the management of a self-governing juvenile centre ("HELIOPOLIS") in Vienna.

In the following years the founding of European settlements in regions which are concerned by exodus is prepared. In the summer of 1972 the first project in the south of France is launched and in cooperation with some young Swiss, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans and Austrians the European cooperative Longo Mai is founded. Till 1974 the upgrading of the Longo Mai’s infrastructure, the agricultural assembly and sheep farming is promoted. This year 7 foreign Longo Mai members are evicted from French government from France. Other settlements in Switzerland, Germany and Austria were built up.

In 1978 Roland Spendlingwimmer is invited by local government functionaries to Bangladesh and Djibuti in order to build up Longo Mai-like cooperatives there. The following year during the war against the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua he is asked to institute a cooperative for Nicaraguan refugees. In Costa Rica a piece of land is bought for this purpose and 50 families begin with it’s cultivation.

At the beginning of the 1980s the conflict in El Salvador was at it’s height and a lot of families fled to Costa Rica to settle down at the Finca Sonador. The majority of them even stay after the peace negotioation 1997 and 2001 the community grasps 65 families (ca. 360 persons)Spendlingwimmer is involved in Costa Rica for more than 20 years now. He supervises different social projects which amongst others are the refugee cooperative „Finca Sonador“, the projekt for prevention „Vida nueva“ and the environmental initiative „UNAPROA“.At the 12th of December 2000 Roland Spendlingwimmer was honored for his long lasting engagement in Costa Rica with the price for human rights of the state Oberösterreich. The award was presented by the head of the provincial government Josef Püringer.

Edited by Frankie