Mon, 15 Jan 2007

Signature campaign aims to give anthroposophy a political voice at the EU

LÖRRACH, Germany (NNA) – A campaign to collect a million signatures in support of anthroposophy by next July has appealed for more support.

The Eliant initiative was established last summer and has as its aim to give the anthroposophical movement with all its practical fields of application a political voice at the EU in Brussels.

In order to be taken seriously in Brussels, evidence of popular support is required. Such support is now to be demonstrated across Europe through this campaign.

The collection of signatures started in November and by the end of December over 6,600 signatures had been registered.

But the one million signatures is only a start. The longer term objective was five to seven million signatures, including from non-EU countries, to demonstrate the worldwide support for anthroposophical initiatives, Eliant co-founder Michæla Glöckler said.

According to Eliant, EU legislation caused ever growing problems for anthroposophical products and services. Children’s food required the artificial addition of vitamins, medicines were no longer allowed to be sold and biodynamic preparations had fallen victim to the fight against mad cow disease (BSE). EU regulations were increasingly preventing the development of anthroposophical initiatives to the extent of threatening their very existence.

A charter for the Eliant initiative was adopted by representatives from a number of European anthroposophical organisations in Brussels last June which has already been translated into various languages. In this context a conscious decision had been taken to highlight the anthroposophical identity of Eliant.

The time had come for initiatives working on the basis of anthroposophy to declare themselves openly and to work towards common goals in Europe with other civil society networks and organisations, the Eliant founders said.

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Link: www.eliant.eu

Item: 070115-02EN Date: 15 January 2007

Copyright 2007 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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Human rights education put on timetable of Austrian Waldorf school

INNSBRUCK (NNA) – The subject of human rights has been made a regular part of the timetable at the Innsbruck Waldorf school in Austria following a four-year pilot project and is included as a subject in pupils’ school reports.

“The new subject shows that we are a school which continues to evolve and which is determined to give its pupils a foundation for life which is both comprehensive and topical,” school principal Hermann Hauser said

Last month the school, together with the Tyrol Institute for Human Rights, had undertaken a review of this unique project on occasion of International Human Rights Day. Ninety percent of the teachers, pupils and parents involved spoke positively about it.

Precisely in a time in which human rights appeared under threat from opposing sides through the “interplay of terror and anti-terrorist measures,” it was important to promote human rights as “a central principle of co-existence based on respect and a peaceful outlook,” Raimund Pehm from the Tyrol Institute for Human Rights emphasised.

The four-year pilot study has produced a comprehensive set of practice reports as well as a framework curriculum for the subject of “human rights education” on which future teaching will be based.

The pilot phase was used to develop the subject which was taught in four-week blocks and started with a relatively open educational outline. “There is no previous experience for us to fall back on so we are proceeding through ‘learning by doing’,” Pehm said at the time when the project started (see also NNA report “Waldorf school introduced human rights as a subject in its own right”, 29 April 2003).

In Pehm’s view, human rights education represents “an exciting perspective” for schools which want to give their pupils a varied and personality-forming experience of the fields of society and democracy in their teaching. But the new subject was also associated with risks. “Human rights are uncomfortable and start things moving. They create productive unrest.” They therefore represented a major challenge for every school community.

Pehm thinks human rights could also be introduced as a compulsory subject in state schools. “It is high time that human rights are given greater importance in school education,“ the stressed.

NNA/end/ung/cva

Link: www.human-rights.at

Item: 070115-01EN Date: 15 January 2007

Copyright 2007 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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