Dear Mr Handwerk,

On behalf of all the staff at Friends of Waldorf Education, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to you. For three decades, you have served our association with tireless dedication and have done so with impressive reliability – in the broadest sense – not in the limelight, not on stage, but in a space where there is a lot of responsibility but rarely any applause. You have worked wherever it was needed – fearlessly, wholeheartedly and with a clear eye for the essentials. Through your work as honorary Managing Director of the Association for the Dissemination and Promotion of Waldorf Education (VfW), you have made a decisive contribution to enabling many teachers abroad to perform their important services over the years – in the knowledge that they would not fall out of the social care provision’s safety net in Germany. With foresight and care, you created conditions that benefited many teachers who were sent abroad – often without them even knowing who they had to thank for this security. We know – and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

The Friends of Waldorf Education have always depended on people who are willing to take on responsibility. People who, with a sense of duty and inner drive, take on tasks that sometimes exist in the background – but are essential for the greater good. Without people like this, it would not have been possible for the Friends, and without them it will not be possible in the future either. It is with great hope and gratitude that we now look to the person who has kindly agreed to continue your work. We are convinced that she too will fulfil this office with sincerity and dedication. 

We wish you, dear Mr Handwerk, all the best – both personally and, of course, for your family. May what you have done for your fellow human beings for so many years now return to you in other ways.