Tue, 04 Mar 2008

Friends of Waldorf Education invites applications for voluntary service in Germany

KARLSRUHE (NNA) – The German-based international Waldorf organisation Friends of Waldorf Education has issued an invitation for people resident outside Germany to apply to undertake voluntary work in Germany.

The placements are coordinated by the organisation and volunteers generally work in an institution in the field of social therapy, curative education or care for the elderly, the Friends say in a circular. All the host institutions work on the basis of anthroposophy.

The voluntary service is intended to be a combination of learning and helping: “We recognize that the volunteers are learners within a new cultural and work context. Thus the voluntary service is a form of intercultural exchange and contact with the unknown. At the same time the volunteers make a valuable contribution through their personality and voluntary work to the life of their host institution,” the organisation says.

The scheme to provide voluntary work placements in Germany has been in operation since 2003 and there are currently volunteers from 31 countries in Central and South Asia, the Far East, North and South America, Africa and Europe working in Germany.

As well as organising voluntary placements within the country for people who are resident outside Germany, the Friends of Waldorf Education has also since 1993 run voluntary service programmes for young people in Germany wishing to work in other countries.

The organisation was founded in 1971 to support initiatives for a free education worldwide. Since then the Friends of Waldorf Education has raised many millions of euros to actively promoted Waldorf/Steiner education in the form of Waldorf kindergartens, Waldorf schools, other educational initiatives, curative education and social therapeutic institutions as well social work projects.

Each year it passes on more than three million euros in donations to over 200 projects.

END/nna/cva

Further details: www.freunde-waldorf.de/en/voluntary-service/in-germany/

Contact: Email: incoming@freunde-waldorf.de, tel.: +49 (0)721 35 48 06 17

Item: 080303-01EN Date: 4 March 2008

Copyright 2008 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/