The power of hope
An accident or an injury changes a life path from one moment to the next – your own path or that of somebody close to you. When you need to find a new direction or overcome obstacles, you often hold onto hope. It gives you the motivation you need to face up to challenges.
On the Nottwil campus, you will find Beacons of Hope to provide you with positive inspiration, activate your own resources, and encourage reflection. Each Beacon of Hope sheds light on an individual source of confidence and shows how you can face up to challenging situations with new strength.
Overview Beacons of Hope
Progress
What are the preconditions for top performances in modern rehabilitation?
Life force
How do we manage to draw strength again and again?
Anchoring
How do we find an anchor in difficult times?
Support
What can we learn from horses?
Encounter
What does inclusion mean for your own life?
Hope
How do you learn to trust your inner strength?
Perception
How do you find something positive in new situations?
Potential
How can you find your abilities?
New start
How do you start a new life situation?
Motivation
What motivates us?
What hope achieves
Hope is the human characteristic that ensures that life is maintained, goals are achieved, problems are solved, and obstacles are overcome. If we are utterly devastated and want to give up, hope and confidence help us to change something about our situation and to look positively to the future.
Hope has a positive effect on body and soul. It makes it easier for us to tolerate pain and to recover more quickly from illness and surgery, while also increasing our body’s defences. It has been scientifically proven that believing in recovery can mobilise our self-healing powers.
Hope leads to new determination. And this gives us the will to survive. Hope in our own scope of influence and in help from others releases energy that allows us to become active, to overcome despair, and to rediscover our joie de vivre.
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Synonyms for hope: assurance, faith, trust in God, optimism, confidence, satisfaction, belief in progress, belief in the future, joie de vivre, courage to face life, joy of being, affirmation of life
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Information
Opening times
The Beacons of Hope in the outside areas of the Nottwil Campus are freely accessible. They are not illuminated in the evening or at night.
Beacons of Hope within buildings can be visited during the usual visiting times of the location in question:
• Swiss Paraplegic Centre: 11 am – 8 pm
• Lago Bar in the Hotel Sempachersee: 6.30 am – 10.30 pmTo visit some of the Beacons of Hope, you will need to go through the clinic. We would ask for your understanding if a Beacon is not immediately accessible.
The Beacons of Hope are a free offer from the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation.
Useful information
Visit the Beacons of Hope on the Nottwil Campus. You will need your mobile with a QR code reader app and headphones. Tip: Look for those places that speak to you most in your current situation – and keep coming back to recharge your strength.
Find hope at home and when you are out and about. You can also access the information at any time from any device in any location via this direct link.
- Languages
Each Beacon of Hope provides information in English, French, German and Italian.
- Freedom from barriers
The main paths are wheelchair- and pushchair-accessible. There are places to sit by most Beacons of Hope.
- Parking
Parking spaces (that you have to pay for) are available on the Nottwil Campus.
- Toilets
There are public toilets in the Swiss Paraplegic Centre and in the Hotel Sempachersee.
- Dogs
Dogs must be kept on a lead in the grounds. Dogs are not permitted to enter the clinic.
- Restaurants
The restaurants in the Swiss Paraplegic Centre and the Hotel Sempachersee offer refreshments and a place to rest.
Restaurant Centro in the Swiss Paraplegic Centre
Restaurants in the Hotel Sempachersee
- Cleanliness
Please leave the Beacons of Hope in a clean and tidy state.
- Situation Plan
Rust-effect information columns and sculptures
The Beacons of Hope feature impressive information columns, some of which are complemented by fitting sculptures. There are several reasons behind the choice of the rust-effect look:
- Life and the challenges it contains characterise and shape each person differently. Just as we develop in different ways, uneven areas of rust develop on the same piece of steel.
- Rust embodies what hope can do: it gives something that was once smooth and shiny a new shape and function, providing it with a protective layer.
- Rust can also be seen as a signal to move forwards intentionally and to become active, as the well-known saying tells us: “Whoever rests, rusts”.
- The rust-effect information columns offer an exciting contrast to the shiny silver Ring of Life that is also a symbol for the circle of life, with its corners, edges and scratches.
The information columns are made of weather-resistant construction steel, known as Corten steel. This steel develops a stable layer of rust that protects the steel below against further corrosion. Corten steel is distinguished by that fact that it develops an extremely consistent patina finish and does not discolour.
Idea and production of the information columns and sculptures
Joe Meyer, DIE WERKSTATT, Buttisholz
Origin of the project
People with a spinal cord injury associate the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation with the greatest hope of the best possible rehabilitation to achieve a life worth living with the diagnosis of a spinal cord injury. This expectation obliges us to recognise and to understand hope. For this reason, the Ethics Forum at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre set the topic of hope as the annual topic for 2018: the hope of patients with a spinal cord injury was to be intentionally recognised as a resource and integrated into everyday treatment and rehabilitation.
The “Beacons of Hope” concept with places that provide hope inside and outside buildings was developed as one of many measures. Some existing places on the Nottwil Campus were particularly suitable for this, but ideas for other places were also developed. The aim is to gradually create further Beacons of Hope.
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