WOW day 2005

Bangkok
Sierra Leone

WOW day 2004

News 2004 from our old WOW-day project in Bogota, Colombia

WOW day 2003

WOW day 2002

225 Waldorf schools in 19 different countries have participated in WOW-day since its beginning in 1994. They have collected 1.092.658 € for children in 8 countries. We have more than 650 Waldorf Schools in Europe and many millions of children in need around the world.

With the support of Waldorf pupils in Europe we have been able to help many children have a better life conditions. The 25 HIV+ children in Hyderabad have now got better food, better clothing and better schooling, the 100 blind and sight-impaired children in St. Petersburg have got a quiet place they love to come to where they can develop their abilities to move and listen, the 20 Chechen children living in Kaunas have received medical care, a better place to live and schooling, children in Sierra Leone and South-Africa have got schooling and care from good teachers and some children in the poorest part of Bogotá have got healthy food in the kindergarten and some 100 school children have been helped with their schoolwork in the social center that we supported. Through the years we have seen that it is one thing to build a house, to renovate an apartment or buy furniture and clothes, but another thing is the ongoing daily care and management of a school, kindergarten or a social centre. There has to be people who know what they are doing, love the children and are competent and skilled teachers or parents. Then we have to find money for the food, the school materials, clothes and all other things you need in your daily life.

So far we have been able to do most of this for our projects, but there is a lot to do still; we must continue our good work for our children around the world and follow up the projects so that they don’t feel lost in either Freetown or Bogotá. They should feel that someone on the other side of the world cares and wants to help. Then perhaps we can help even more hundreds of children to grow up and make a good life for themselves and their families. The reports we have received during the school year 2006/07 are very encouraging. From India and Russia and South-Africa their gratitude is warm and heartfelt. To all of you who did WOW-day last year we send you from the children of our projects: THANK YOU!

Wow-day organization

WOW-day is organized as a cooperative venture between the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE) and Freunde der Erziehungskunst Rudolf Steiners.

ECSWE meets three times a year and has representatives from 22 European countries representing more than 650 Steiner-Waldorf schools. At these meetings and between times WOW-day is planned and coordinated by an ECSWE working group consisting of:

• Meri Arni-Kautu, Finland
• Astrid Bjønness, Norway
• Christopher Clouder, UK
• Jeppe Flummer, Denmark
• Kamiel van Herp, Belgium and
• Helmut von Loebell, Austria/ Colombia

To choose the projects we use the expertise of the staff of the Freunde der Erziehungskunst, and all the money that is raised is directly transferred through their accounts and international contacts. We would also be very interested in hearing about your experiences and projects for WOW day so we can post them on our webpages www.ecswe.net and www.freunde-waldorf.de to encourage and inspire others.

Support and Donations

Please note!

Without the exact details of your address we are unable to thank you, or pass on any further information. Please note down your school, address and class where relevant on all transactions.

WOW-day results 1994-2007

Year: Sum: Number of schools:

1994/95: 24.906 € 20 schools
1995/96: 37.009 € 39 schools
1996/97: 28.348 € 26 schools
1997/98: 38.184 € 25 schools
1998/99: 33.265 € 17 schools
1999/00: 46.435 € 30 schools
2000/01: 61.193 € 38 schools
2001/02: 59.360 € 40 schools
2002/03: 63.750 € 37 schools
2003/04: 77.373 € 34 schools
2004/05: 445.614 € 132 schools
2005/06: 98.426 € 52 schools
2006/07: 74.270 € 41 schools

Total: 1.092.658 € 225 schools

Name of the participating schools

Times Name of school Country

13 Freie Waldorfschule am Bodensee Germany
12 Rudolf Steinerskolen i Vestfold Norway
11 Freie Waldorfschule auf den Fildern Germany
11 Rudolf Steiner-Skolen i Århus Denmark
10 Steinerskolen på Lillehammer Norway
10 Rudolf Steiner Schule Siegen Germany
10 Martinskolan Sweden
9 Internationaal Hulpfonds Netherlands
8 Hibernia School, Antwerpen Belgium
8 York Steiner School England
8 Ellen Key Skolan Sweden
8 Freie Waldorfschule Ulm Römerstrasse Germany
8 Helsingen Rudolf Steiner-koulu Finland
7 Rudolf Steiner Schule Salzburg Austria
7 Sophiaskolan Sweden
6 Steinerskolen i Asker Norway
6 Fräi-öffentlech-Waldorfschoul Letzebuerg Luxemburg
6 Rudolf Steiner School of South Devon England
6 Elmfield School England
6 Freie Waldorfschule Saarbrücken Germany
5 Steinerskolen i Indre Østfold Norway
5 Söderköpings Waldorfskola Sweden
5 Michael Hall School England
5 Freie Waldorfschule Saar Pfalz Germany
5 Freie Waldorfschule Augsburg Germany
5 Freie Waldorfschule Westpfalz, Otterberg, Germany
5 Waldorfska Sola Ljubljana, Slovenia

In addition 13 schools have participated 4 times and 23 schools
have participated 3 times

Corporación educative y social Waldorf, Bogotá, Colombia

Now this centre has a kindergarten with 60 children and workshops where about 150 school children come to have artistic lessons in music, painting, modelling, and theatre. In addition they get help with their academic school work, like reading, writing and mathematics.

In this last year they have opened a small health station in a neighbouring house where a doctor and other health personal help children and grownups with all kinds of problems.
There is also a training program for parents with art workshops and a legal consultancy.

Teachers and pupils from Salzburg Waldorf School have helped with workshops in the centre and this summer 2007 a group of pupils worked with the children in the centre, which is situated in the area of Sierra Morena where about 2 million poor people are living. In the future they would like to work even more with the arts and have more people to come and help in this very important work for some of the poorest people of this world.

The people in Sierra Morena send their warmest greetings to everybody who has helped them to have this beautiful social centre.

WOW-day will not forget the children in Bogotá and you are welcome to work for this project.

India I: Balamitra School and training Centre – Visakhapatnam

Balamitra is a tribal Education Program run by the Visakhapatnam based NGO Samata. For 20 years they have been working in the tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh in South India. They run schools in about 30 villages and a model school in the outskirts of Vizag.

The Balamitra Education Program was created to enable tribal children in remote villages to have access to primary education. They have adopted some ideas from the Waldorf Education. Tribal youths are trained as community teachers and are introduced to the art of creative and joyful teaching. During the school year 2006/07 the model school shifted to a new building which provided more space and a huge playground, so they could take more children and there were 34 pupils who studied in the school.

They had six volunteers from Germany living with them for 10 to 11 months, of whom three had been pupils in a Waldorf school for 13 years. Also one experienced Waldorf teacher stayed with them for 5 months, and she taught not only their teachers but also teachers from one other school who have benefited from the training.

The vision of Samata is to centralize all sections in one place, the offices, the accommodation for members, their families, friends and volunteers and the Model School on one property. If the dream can become true essentially depends on the generosity of our supporters. Two major trainings were held last year for the teachers of the 40 schools in the remote villages, and many new insights based on Waldorf education, like rhythmic activities, sport, speech, drumming, carpentry and pottery were introduced to the participants. Primary level history, geography, plant and animal life lessons through working with nature around them and tapping the experiential knowledge of the tribal people was an important focus of the trainings.

The School Bazaar was one of he highlights of the year; then the children exhibited their workbooks and pictures from the lessons in the classrooms, Class II sold soap in four different aromas, which they had made themselves, and the pupils presented some activities and songs in English and Telugu. Then Class V showed a play based on tribal mythology.

Another highlight for the children was the recording of their traditional songs. All India Radio staff visited the school and the children were very proud and astonished to hear their own voices on the radio. It was a special moment for Class V when summer holidays came and they got admission to government run tribal schools by passing a test in May.

Next year more effort is to be laid on the work of the village schools with teachers visiting the schools regularly for supervision and trainings.

We will continue to support this work for children who would not get any schooling without Samata.

India II: The Freedom Foundation (DIYA)

DIYA is a comprehensive care and support shelter for children. This year 26 HIV+ children have lived there, unfortunately on Tuesday 2nd April one of the children died, so now there are 25 left. The children are aged between 3 and 14 years. The organisation has existed since 2002.

In the report they write:

"The goal is to provide these HIV positive children the maximum quality of life by extending quality comprehensive care and support until their ultimate call".

Nutrition:
It has been ensured that all the children are served quality fresh food, the children are provided with fruits and milk with honey in the morning.

Shelter:
All children have got their own beds and kit of items (tooth brush, soaps, napkins and cloths) and ensured that they are not mixed with others to control skin infection. Two pair of clothes were bought and one set of bed spreads in January 2007.

Medical care:
The medical team do the daily check -ups and the general investigation (once in six months). Almost all the children in January were found to be very well. Four children had got affected with measles but are doing very well now.

Education:
There are 19 children enrolled in a standard English medium school and are doing well except a few children who have been put under special attention on tuition as all children come from different settings (low economic background) and because of late entry to school.

Recreational Facilities and Yoga:
In order to see the children enjoy their lives they are taken to Social gatherings, Zoo park etc. All the children are also participating in yoga classes.

Challenges ahead and at present:
the children grow up fast and require more care to address the growing up issues. There is a need to appoint a full time psychologist female and male. We require a separate structure for boys and girls.

All the activities mentioned could only be done because of the dedicated people like you and other volunteers. We continue to salute each and everyone who has given hope to these children. Let s hope one day they will overcome their burdens and have a peaceful life just like any one of us.

We continue to foresee that your continuous support will bring a significant impact to the children and also as a team, who work with the children, we are also able to get a good amount of encouragement to do it more effectively until their ultimate call.

We will encourage you to work for these children in India so that they can have some joy and comfort in their lives.

Art studio St. Petersburg

With the help of WOW-day money our friends in St. Petersburg were able to buy a piano and some other instruments which are now being used by the blind and sight-impaired children in ART studio. They have also bought a fridge, and the kitchen is very well fitted for small groups of children for painting and work with clay and wax.

The children love the new place which is situated in the middle of the historical centre of the city close to the Smolny cathedral on Shpalernaya street 38.
Both the children and the parents love to come here and it is difficult for them to leave after the therapy, they want to stay.

In May 2007 they received some money which they spent on a massage bed where the children can be treated and the parents can get a massage while waiting for their children. Those children who live at home have parents whose only full- time care is their blind or sight- impaired child. That means that they cannot work, have only the income from the small state support for the child and have, of course, all kinds of difficulties. There is a need to do something also for the parents.

Some of the children have participated in festivals for alternative dance and theatre and they have had great success with their improvisation to music.

During this last year our friends in ART studio have finished the work on a curriculum for their work and some weeks ago they got the approval from the regional authorities. This is a big step forward for the centre and perhaps this can be a model for other similar centres around the country or even in other countries? We visited the centre this summer with some pupils from a Waldorf school in Norway and we are very impressed by the work they are doing.

If you want to help the centre develop further you are very welcome to do so.

"Rodnaya semya" (Our own family)
A home for orphans from Chechnya

Last summer a group of 14 children came from Grozny in Chechnya to Kaunas in Lithuania to live with their “mother”, Hadizat, and “father”, Malik, in their “new” house.

With WOW-day money we have helped them in buying a house and starting to renovate it. It turned out that the house needs a lot of work, and Malik and the big boys have been working in the house last autumn and this summer.

Some of the children who came last year needed medical treatment and three of them were successfully operated on, the youngest one, little Galya, is being operated these days. Three of the boys finished school this spring and would like to go on to get a profession and three more girls will start school this autumn.

The situation in Grozny is much quieter than some time ago and now they are building up the city again, but if the oldest boys go back they will be sent to the military and Malik cannot go back as it is dangerous for him.

So far they are staying in Kaunas with some of the children and have also a place in Grozny for about the same amount of children with the total of about 35 children. But this number has not been stable for a long time because new children turn up all the time as Hadizat is well known all around for taking care of children.

We have been able to send them 1000 € every month for their everyday needs. That is of course not enough, but we cooperate with an organisation called Kaukasuskinder which also sends money to them.

In this way we have managed to help them through this last school year, and we will continue to help them the coming year. Although Chechnya is almost forgotten by media the suffering from the war is still great, and Hadizat and Malik deserve all kinds of support. We will help them go on helping children both in Grozny and in Kaunas. The first thing is to get the house fixed and to give them money for their daily lives.

We have been to Kaunas to see them this summer and will see them a couple of times during the spring, so we keep the very close contact. Both Hadizat and Malik and the children send their warmest greetings to all of you who have helped them to a better life in their new house in Kaunas.

We hope that you will work for this project also next year.

Educare Centre in Cape Town

WOW-day has supported the work of this centre for many years and in June 2007 we got a report from the last school year. Here are some points from the report:

“We are moving towards the eventual goal of making the Government a reliable partner. Presently we are training 67 practitioners on Saturdays and holidays under the auspices of the Government tender, in addition comes the normal training. The benefits of working with this are very positive for the Waldorf movement as a whole. We are actively engaged in curriculum discussions, policy issues as well as being asked to advise in terms of play, story-telling and generally to bring the arts back into the daily rhythm of the classroom.

The National Director of Early Childhood was overheard saying: “What would we do without our Waldorf colleagues when it comes to the relevance and importance of the arts”.

The statistics says that on a National Level only 20 % of our children under 5 are in formalised centres. In Western Cape the figure increases slightly to 32 %.

The statistics in terms of child abuse in our country is horrendous. In one month 135 cases of rape of under 5s were reported to one police station in Cape Town. Cape Town has 50 police stations.”

Some of the kindergartens that Educare Centre has been able to establish are in great need of more space. The playground is too small and they need to find ways of creating space even if it means extending into the street. This has to be done bearing strict safety measures in mind.

They are also working to improve the organisational structure of the kindergartens. Many loose their teachers at the end of the school year because they pay them only for 10 months. Then they have to train them from scratch.

The report ends:

“It is with confidence I can say that as movement we are definitely starting to make an impact on the early childhood sector in SA.”

If you want to work for the kindergartens in the townships of Cape Town, you know that this is very much needed.

Goderich Waldorf School
in Freetown, Sierra Leone

The Goderich community in Freetown is a place for the absolutely poor. The rivalry for survival is so rife among adults and that children are less considered than human beings. A saying goes like this: “When a child falls, it can be easily lifted up by an adult. But when an adult falls, a child can not lift him/her up”. It means that in a situation wherein the possibility of daily food or survival is unpredictable; the adults must first be satisfied before the children.

In this environment the Goderich Waldorf School started its work ten years ago in the middle of the civil war. Now there has been peace for five years and as this is being written an election has just taken place. It is said to be a free election, so the country is moving forward.

In the school year that ended 29th June 2007 the school had six classes with 206 pupils. One of the teachers has been to Great Britain to study Waldorf pedagogy from May to July this year and the 1st class teacher worked as an assistant for some months before she took over the class.

Shannoh Kandoh writes in his report:

“Our children have shown great prowess in African traditional dance, we aim not only to build their self- esteem and confidence again, but also to bring together individuals and groups in a divided community. In February, we invited the District Supervisor of schools to witness one of the children’s rehearsals. After his visit he remarked: “African dance and songs are lost activities in schools as well as urban communities today, but in your school, teachers and children are creating a vehicle that will bring reconciliation and communality”. In spite of the challenges that we experience as a school, we continue to look forward to a brighter future for these children which God has placed in our care.

We have the moral responsibility as adults to help them. Without our school, these children would definitely not have the opportunity to be educated in a more human way.

Although our building project at the new location has been slow due to the rains and the digging of the toilet, we shall definitely complete the structure before September as we have already given up the old location.

Finally the children and the staff of Goderich Waldorf School would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation and thanks to all, for their benevolent support given to us. Without your support in kind and cash, our work would not have been possible. We are especially grateful to the children in Waldorf schools worldwide who are sacrificing their time to raise funds, pocket-money and materials to support our school.

May all of you enjoy the true experience of life as your efforts bring us the hope of a common humanity”

WOW-day will continue supporting the school in Sierra Leone

WOW day 2006

WOW day 2005

WOW day 2004 News 2004 from our old WOW-day project in Bogota, Colombia

WOW day 2003

WOW day 2002