Our sponsorships

Make a child the gift to being able to attend a Waldorf school

Waldorf teachers around the world want to educate the children you sponsor, in such a way that they can develop each child’s unique individuality. Their intention is nurture imagination, interest in the world and later independent thinking, instead of causing these gifts to be buried. Thus one can hope that as many children as possible can be able to attend a Waldorf school.

But in many countries Waldorf schools receive little or no support from the state. Since the schools have to support themselves financially many families are confronted by insurmountable problems. Whether in South America, in Africa or in Eastern Europe, they are often burdened with unemployment or receive only very low wages, and many are single parent families. Naturally the schools do their best to admit children whose parents can only pay a part of the school fees, but what can the schools do to survive? Here individual sponsorships can make an extraordinary difference.

From the end of the 90s onwards we received increasing numbers of requests to support children in countries like Uruguay, Colombia, Namibia, South Africa or Lithuania to attend schools. Today we facilitate about 250 individual sponsorships to enable children to visit over 30 different schools. The total sum is worth about 8,000 Euros a month.

You can choose the level of your regular donation - each donation is a valuable help. The level of school fees varies between countries like Armenia, Lithuania or Vietnam – around 25-30 Euros a month and up to 200 Euros a month in countries in South America. Living costs in many of these countries are comparable with those in Europe, whereas incomes are many times lower!

We facilitate sponsorships in the sense of an educational voucher system. Our approach involves an arrangement with the school whereby the donation to top up the fees benefits all the children in need whose parents cannot afford the full fees, even though not every child is sponsored. Ideally all these children can stay in the school including those not individually sponsored. Thus the sponsored children are like ambassadors for the whole school. Therefore the sponsorships benefit the whole school community, whilst nevertheless retaining the possibilities of a more personal relationship to the sponsors and thus an individual element.

All sponsors receive twice a year a little report including photographs from ‘their’ children, often including a personal letter from the family and even a letter from the child. The sponsors can write to their children if they want. Friends of Waldorf Education have permanent reliable contacts locally who pass on the contact details and email addresses of the sponsors to the children and their families.

What a Waldorf School can mean...
"As a young South African who was born in Johannesburg and who grew up in Cape Town I can honestly say that without your financial support I´d probably be on the streets telling myself that crime is my life and that there is a future doing that. So thanks for believing in me and making my education possible. I am where I am today because of you!"
Thuto Thipa, class 12, WS McGregor, 2008.