Home: Freunde Waldorf

Information for social therapy & curative education facilities

What is WOW-Day?

As a global campaign, Waldorf-One-World-Day (abbreviated WOW-Day) offers the direct opportunity to actively stand up for people with disabilities in a tangible way and to provide them with a prospect for a self-determined life. On WOW-Day, people of all ages take a look into the "big wide world" and are committed to ensuring that other people also benefit from good education, a protective community or even just a warm meal. To meet this goal, they organise a variety of actions.

Why should you become active?

In many countries, institutions for people with disabilities are not subsidised by the state. And socially, in many parts of the world there is still a very long way to go to reach equality. So people with a disability are left to themselves in many places or have to be looked after and funded by their families up until old age.

A campaign for everyone - without differences

So far, WOW-Day was a campaign that was mainly focused on Waldorf students whose fundraising activities also benefited numerous curative education and social therapeutic initiatives. To underline the inclusive nature of this campaign, the Friends of Waldorf Education invite everyone in curative education and social therapeutic initiatives to shape the world through their own actions and contribute to making it a better place.

This is how you can participate

You organise a WOW-Day action either in individual housing groups or together with your entire community. Sit down together and consider what you can do well and what you enjoy. Any small but original fundraising idea can make a big difference. Suggestions for your actions can be found here.

Projects around the world

Institutions that are in need of support, can be found under projects around the world. You can either choose specific projects or donate towards the general WOW-Day fund. The latter allows us to support facilities worldwide that urgently need help. In this way we can especially help smaller initiatives that do not yet have a large group of supporters. If you would like to support a specific institution, you can inform us at any time, even after registration and up to the time until your donation reaches us. To make a spirited start into the second century of Waldorf Schools, we would like to introduce our jubilee projects for WOW-Year. This is where the need is especially great. Together we want to collect donations for these fields!

Registration and transfer of donations

To register please simply fill in the online form with the name of the contact person at your facility. After your campaign you compile all donations and your institution transfers the entire donated amount to the Friends of Waldorf Education. We then forward the WOW-Day donation at 100% to projects in need worldwide.

Register 23/24

Your campaigns make WOW-Day what it is. You have an idea with which you want to participate? Then why not send it to us right now!

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Ideas for Your Campaign

There are countless ways to shape your own WOW-Day. A collection of colourful ideas can be found here.

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Example: WOW-Day in the living community Altenschlirf

Worldwide solidarity with Waldorf educational institutions – that is the idea behind “Waldorf One World,” WOW-Day for short. On a specified day, dedicated people collect donations in many different ways to give them to Waldorf facilities in need. This year, for the first time, the living and working community Altenschlirf participated in WOW-Day. On open house day ( October 3rd) the JUKO (students, apprentices, and trainees) raffled off all products which were manufactured in the workshops of Altenschlirf on Michaelmas, September 29th. They will donate the gains to Prietenia Pantelimon, a Rumanian facility for people with special needs, which is home to a special-needs school. The curative education facility was opened in 2006 and is situated on a 5-hectare property close to the capital of Bucharest. Eventually, there will be jobs for 50 people with special needs and housing for 40.

“We are very pleased to set an example of solidarity by participating in WOW-Day”, says Tobias Raedler, managing director of housing, himself a Waldorf alumnus. Many of the community residents themselves attended a curative educational Waldorf School and have fond memories of their school years. “Internationally, Waldorf Schools or curative education facilities working on an anthroposophical basis often receive little or no state funding”, explains Raedler. “The kind of comprehensive support that we can offer in our community is, in many countries, anything but a matter of course”.

Empower & donate now
Empower & donate now