Brussels, 14 December 2021

ECSWE sets itself ambitious strategic priorities

Starting in 2022, the Board and staff will strengthen advocacy and PR, provide capacity building to members and facilitate networking and collaboration between members and partners.

More working time budgeted to strengthen advocacy and PR

Start­ing in 2022, the posi­tion of our Advo­ca­cy and PR Coor­di­na­tor Dora Šimunović will be upgrad­ed from a part-time posi­tion to a full-time job. This will help to bet­ter dis­sem­i­nate our work and to fur­ther pro­fes­sion­alise our advo­ca­cy for an age-appro­pri­ate and devel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed ICT and media edu­ca­tion. Our ongo­ing advo­ca­cy with­in the frame­work of the Euro­pean Edu­ca­tion Area has also been strength­ened by the suc­cess­ful appli­ca­tion of our Ped­a­gog­i­cal Advi­sor Mar­tyn Raw­son for mem­ber­ship in the new­ly estab­lished EU work­ing group on Path­ways to School Suc­cess.

Strengthening member associations through capacity building

In response to our mem­bers’ desire to fur­ther pro­fes­sion­alise their own advo­ca­cy, PR and asso­ci­a­tion man­age­ment at the nation­al lev­el, the ECSWE Board and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Georg Jür­gens are com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for nation­al Stein­er Wal­dorf school asso­ci­a­tions through capac­i­ty build­ing in all three areas. Envi­sioned activ­i­ties range from offer­ing spe­cialised train­ing to sup­port­ing small and under­fund­ed nation­al asso­ci­a­tions in their fundrais­ing efforts in order to recruit and train pro­fes­sion­al staff.

Facilitating networking, peer learning and transnational cooperation

In order to high­light and mobilise the huge poten­tial of mutu­al sup­port among our mem­bers, the Board and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor have com­mit­ted to facil­i­tate net­work­ing and peer learn­ing among mem­bers by allo­cat­ing more time in Coun­cil meet­ings for infor­mal exchanges and the shar­ing of good prac­tices, by estab­lish­ing inter­ac­tive online com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, by occa­sion­al­ly host­ing online the­mat­ic work­shops and by estab­lish­ing Coun­cil work­ing groups. More efforts will also be ded­i­cat­ed to bet­ter net­work­ing with our inter­na­tion­al part­ners and to the transna­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in the frame­work of EU fund­ed projects.