Projects which need your help

Barão de Grajaú in the state of Maranhão is a small city in the poor north eastern parts of Brazil. Around 17.000 people are living here. On the opposite side of the river Parnaiba one can see the city of Floriano that has 70.000 inhabitants. Here one finds industry, mediocre hospitals and a university. The next nearest large city Teresina 800.000 inhabitants are almost 200km away (four hour drive by car). – In this remote area a social project has been caring for the poorest of the poor for the last 15 years. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

How can youths today find their way in a society where more value is placed on material things rather than – education, health, caring for the aged, or having a regular income? The media plays a big role in this relation: they present consumerism as the key to happiness. But for most of the Brazilians this telenova world of the rich and the beautiful is unobtainable. The wish to find a way into this world is often accompanied by a shady world where stealing, drug dealing, and prostitution are at the order of the day. This shady world is portrayed in the movie City of God and it gives a very realistic portrait of life in the favelas. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

In Brazil a small upper class and upper middle class stand in contrast to the rest of the population who are often illiterate. The „Associação Communitaria Micael“ in  São Paulo cares for poor children like José, whose story we tell. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The social project "Centro Educativo Social Waldorf" in the megacity Bogotà is helping the poor families of the suburb "Sierra Morena". The work includes a kindergarten, an education and social program, social work, health care... Donations help that all this is possible. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

For 16 years Lourdes Jibaja has been teaching at the Waldorf school in Lima at the end of 2004 she gave up her secure well paid job to follow her strong impulse to make Waldorf education accessible for poor people. A clue from one of her previous pupils leads her to a town in the Andes. The result was that very soon there was a carpentry workshop, English lessons for children and adults, afternoon courses for children and supervision during the long summer holidays. In the evenings Lourdes works in a school for orphans, and gives lessons to illiterate woman and helps wherever she can. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The Baobab Children Foundation which was set up by Edith de Vos gathers children from the streets of Ghana. In the Baobab School for Trades and Traditional Arts in Kissi they get the chance to lead a dignified life. The pracitcal and artistic subjects are central. We educate our pupils in various arts and crafts. A carpenter who makes his furniture beautifully, who can do carving and can make rattan and bamboo furniture as well, will later be able to live from his work… >> Read more. [Back to the top]

Shannoh Kandoh started his initiative under most difficult conditions. In 1995 during the civil war in Freetown he began to teach poor children from refugee families. When the conflict reached the capital he had to stop his work. After the country returned to peace in 2000 Shannoh founded a small proper school starting with 53 children. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The Centre for Creative Education gives Waldorf training and is the only independent teacher training institute in South Africa. The kindergarten training work takes place in the township areas around Cape Town in which the vast majority of our black and coloured citizens still live in conditions of poverty. Disease, crime, and abuse of women and children, are part of daily life and deeply affect the future of children... Our work focuses on training women who live and work in the townships to care for and educate young children in their most formative early years, before they enter formal schooling. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

It is with very few means that the puppeteers of PIE (Puppetry in Education) are going in the schools, educare centres and even in the homes and churches to perform their plays – and they take young and older children into another world. During the last seven years almost 10,000 children had the opportunity to experience this powerful world of fairy tales and fantasy and with this a bit of true childhood – basic for a real, healthful growing-up. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

[Only German until now:] In der Township Khayelitsha leben geschätzt eine Million Menschen. Die meisten Eltern suchen für ihre Kinder eine gute Erziehung – außerhalb der Township. Doch sie können auch direkt vor Ort fündig werden. 1999 wurde die Zenzeleni Waldorfschule gegründet. Sie weckt das Interesse von Eltern, die ihre Kinder sonst in eine Schule außerhalb der Township schicken würden. Immer wieder sind die Menschen von den Vorführungen bei den Elterntreffen oder bei Besuchen im normalen Unterricht beeindruckt. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The Lesedi Waldorf Centre is situated in the village Madietane, about 60 kilometers west of Pietersburg (in the North of South Africa), and can only to be reached by dustroads. The school was founded around 1990 by Emily Moabelo, who came from Madietane and had met Waldorfeducation in Jo’burg earlier in her life. The school has a nursery class and class 1 up to 7 with 122 children. The Department of Education let the school know that they won’t get subsidies for 2008. It would be a terrible thing if such a lovely school in such a special place would have to be closed! >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The Michaelschule (founded 1994) was and is the only school for curative education, which has a clear concept for the education, training and social integration of children with intellectual and physical developmental difficulties. Since 2006 the school has an extremly difficult financial situation. Since an “educational reform” all schools get a per capita subsidy – 11 Euro per month, regardless if they are caring for handicapped or non handicapped children! Today the Michaelschule can pay the teachers only 26-28 Euro a month - an amount that does not even cover transportation cost for daily travelling to and from school! >> Read more. [Back to the top]

The problems of people with limited mental and physical abilities in Georgia still remain unsolved. The Georgian unstable domestic – and foreign politics, difficult economic situation, unhealthy social environment, poverty and much more, results in nothing being changed. In Georgia there are about 20.000 mentally disabled persons, 4000 of these in Tbilisi. And yet there is only our home and workshop at the university, who cares for 60 people all the time, many families approach us, looking for a place for their children but have to go onto the waiting list. >> Read more. [Back to the top]

2004 a group of Arabic and Jewish Israelis, in the face of many repressions and violence in Israel, opened a Waldorf kindergarten for Arabic children - a pilot project for the whole Arabic culture. 2007 opened a Waldorf school which now has two classes. 2008/09 the financial problems got very hard, because the authorities often show rather no understanding - and even didn´t pay the subsidies that have been granted in the years before! >> Read more. [Back to the top]

Also the three Waldorf kindergartens in and around Ho-Chi-Minh-City there were heavily affected by the rice crisis caused by greedy carpetbaggers. In these difficult times, parents are loosing their menial jobs; the cost of living rocketing sky high; drought, flood or hurricane a constant threat for people like them living in rickety sheds… But in the midst of such adversity and misery there are still moments and events that shine. It gives us the courage to continue in our work. >> Read more. [Back to the top]