Brussels, 26 May 2023

Deepening connections with our international partners

When our members voice their needs to us, we can not always address them thoroughly without consulting with our partners. For this reason, we are eager to strengthen that cooperation.

Joining the meeting of international Steiner Waldorf organisations

From 19th to 21st of April 2022, a del­e­ga­tion form ECSWE, includ­ing five board and team mem­bers, par­tic­i­pat­ed in a col­lo­qui­um at the Goetheanum in Dor­nach, Switzer­land, organ­ised by the Ped­a­gog­i­cal Sec­tion and the Hague Cir­cle. Dur­ing the col­lo­qui­um, the top­ic of “Bod­i­ly Expe­ri­ence and Intel­lec­tu­al Devel­op­ment” was dis­cussed. In addi­tion, the ECSWE del­e­ga­tion met with the organ­is­ers of the col­logu­ium, and the IASWECE and ENSWaP del­e­ga­tions. This meet­ing was the step­ping stone for the struc­tured calls that fol­lowed in the fol­low­ing months.

Connecting with six organisations through individual calls

In 2022, ECSWE con­duct­ed six struc­tured calls with six per­ma­nent guests and inter­na­tion­al Stein­er Wal­dorf part­ners: Alliance ELIANT, Friends of Wal­dorf Edu­ca­tion, IASWECE, INASTE, the Hague Cir­cle, and the Ped­a­gog­i­cal Sec­tion of the Goetheanum. The pur­pose of these calls was to gain an under­stand­ing of our part­ners’ mis­sions and objec­tives, their areas of focus and burn­ing ques­tions, their per­cep­tion of our work and poten­tial areas for future collaboration.

One of the con­clu­sion of these calls was that we and our part­ners share many con­cerns in the fields of learn­er devel­op­ment and well-being, edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­ty, teacher train­ing, cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment, the role of edu­ca­tion in the dig­i­tal age, school fund­ing, school lead­er­ship, and the devel­op­ment of the Stein­er Wal­dorf move­ment in Europe and the world.

Bringing our members’ needs to our partners’ attention

In the calls it became evi­dent that a num­ber of chal­lenges that our mem­bers face can be bet­ter addressed in coop­er­a­tion with our part­ners. This includes a desire for bet­ter inter­na­tion­al coor­di­na­tion when it comes to the Stein­er Wal­dorf trade­mark, but also regard­ing the local WOW Day fundrais­ing activ­i­ties, espe­cial­ly when cen­tred around help­ing the Ukrain­ian Stein­er Wal­dorf movement.

Our part­ners have agreed to joint­ly explore pos­si­bil­i­ties for inter­na­tion­al teacher exchanges with­in the frame­work of the Eras­mus+ pro­gramme. Addi­tion­al­ly, they have received requests from our mem­bers to improve Stein­er Wal­dorf teacher train­ing options in Europe. A con­crete step towards achiev­ing these com­mon goals is to con­tin­ue hav­ing reg­u­lar calls where all part­ners join and exchange ideas a few times a year.

Further reading