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Waldorf crisis intervention team on way to Haiti

KARLSRUHE (NNA) - After weeks of planning, the 14-member crisis intervention team from the international organisation Friends of Waldorf Education is on its way to Haiti. The aim of the deployment is to help children traumatised by the earthquake to recover by strengthening their self-healing forces through Waldorf educational methods to prevent the development of post-traumatic stress disorders, the organisation said in a press release. The circumstances of the quake mean that the team thought it likely that there would be large numbers of deeply traumatised children and young people needing help. Full story >

Berlin court frees Waldorf students charged with throwing Molotov cocktail

BERLIN (NNA) – Family, friends and supporters of two Berlin Waldorf students, Rigo B. (17) and Yunus K. (20), who have been held on remand for the last seven months on serious criminal charges, reacted with relief to the news that a court had ordered the release of the students from custody. The two are charged with having thrown a Molotov cocktail at police during the May Day demonstrations earlier this year, but last Thursday the Moabit criminal court ordered them to be set free because it no longer saw sufficient evidence to keep holding them. Full story >

Nicanor Perlas starts election campaign “where it all began”

MANILA (NNA) The campaign for the presidential elections in the Philippines has officially started. Nicanor Perlas, described as running on an “environmentalist” €and “reformist”€� platform, returned to the Ateneo de Manila University which he once attended to answer questions from students. Perlas officially starts his campaign not in Manila but in Cebu City in order in this way to highlight his ideas for a more decentralised politics, a key to fighting poverty in his view. Full story >

Education in the Andes / Visit to the Galapagos Islands

Ruth Zbinden was a teacher in a Swiss Waldorf School who recently retired. Now she is fulfilling her dream travelling and working in South America. After a stopover in Costa Rica and Guatemala, she headed towards the reason for her journey, a small school in Ecuador, located high in the Andes, where she worked as a volunteer for Cielo Azul, a small relief aid organisation with its headquarters located in Basel. There she was introduced to the struggle the indigenous peoples face for the right to an education. Then after three and a half months as a stand-in teacher at the school, Ruth Zbinden moved on. Next on the agenda was a tourist stop on the Galapagos Islands. Read the latest instalments of her journey here and here.