Brussel, 21 March 2025

National associations of Steiner Waldorf schools drive our work

The European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE) consists of representatives from all our members: 27 national associations that include over 800 Steiner Waldorf schools. Our main task is to represent and support their interests at the European level.

Putting our members’ needs at the core of our daily business

Twice a year in per­son and once online, all our mem­bers come togeth­er for 2–4 days of intense meet­ings. The ECSWE coun­cil meet­ings give the pos­si­bil­i­ty to our board and team to report their work and share future oper­a­tional plans with the mem­bers, but more impor­tant­ly, to get their input and feed­back on the rel­e­vance and qual­i­ty of that work. The input and feed­back expressed by the mem­bers dur­ing the coun­cil meet­ings serve as a real­i­ty check for the dai­ly work of the ECSWE office. Next to the meet­ings, when all eyes are on ECSWE’s work, the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of nation­al asso­ci­a­tions of Stein­er Wal­dorf schools have con­tin­u­ous space to inter­act with each oth­er and with the ECSWE team with­in work­ing groups, capac­i­ty-build­ing activ­i­ties, email, chat groups, and calls. Every oth­er year, the ECSWE board and team con­duct struc­tured calls with each mem­ber indi­vid­u­al­ly, to look deep­er into their spe­cif­ic needs and find oppor­tu­ni­ties for ECSWE to bet­ter sup­port those.

Relying on members’ input in our yearly planning and in communicating our values

With­in the Civ­il Soci­ety Coop­er­a­tion pro­gramme, parts of our oper­a­tional work can be co-fund­ed by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion in com­pli­ance with its val­ues. Even though the Com­mis­sion approved of our three-year plan in gen­er­al, each year we have an oblig­a­tion to sub­mit a work plan that describes con­crete actions and deliv­er­ables we will achieve that year. The ECSWE coun­cil meet­ings are cru­cial spaces to col­lect ideas for these plans from our mem­bers. In small work­ing-groups, on large papers, our mem­bers share their ideas, needs, and point­ers for the year to come.
Sim­i­lar­ly, in 2024, our mem­bers pro­vid­ed feed­back and direct input into the revi­sion of the ECSWE diver­si­ty state­ment. Dur­ing the June online meet­ing feed­back for the revised diver­si­ty state­ment was col­lect­ed, and dur­ing the Octo­ber in-per­son meet­ing, the mem­bers expressed and dis­cussed their opin­ion regard­ing var­i­ous ele­ments of the state­ment that then served as guide­lines for a small group of mem­bers to cre­ate a new revised diver­si­ty state­ment that all mem­bers could sub­scribe to.

Representing national association of Steiner Waldorf schools on the European level

Even though our mem­bers are nation­al asso­ci­a­tions of Stein­er Wal­dorf schools in Europe, their rep­re­sen­ta­tives in ECSWE are indi­vid­ual peo­ple, who are mem­bers of the asso­ci­a­tions’ board or staff, school prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, and/or par­ents. They are select­ed by their nation­al asso­ci­a­tions to be its rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Euro­pean lev­el accord­ing to their own cri­te­ria, with the only require­ment from ECSWE that they are flu­ent users of the Eng­lish lan­guage. Some rep­re­sen­ta­tives have been a part of ECSWE for over 20 years, while some joined only recent­ly, as suc­ces­sors of their pre­vi­ous rep­re­sen­ta­tive. In 2024, we wel­comed Lilith Sargsyan from Arme­nia, Hilde Lengali from Nor­way, Maaike van Gelder from the Nether­lands, Heli Müris­ta­ja from Esto­nia, Andrea Soós from Hun­gary, and Daiga Buda from Latvia. In the Octo­ber meet­ing we also wel­comed Una Ní Ghairb­hith as a scout from the renewed Stein­er Wal­dorf school asso­ci­a­tion in Ire­land con­sid­er­ing join­ing our organisation.

Further reading