Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Waldorf crisis intervention team heads for Indonesia following earthquake

KARLSRUHE (NNA) – Only a few months after their deployment in the Gaza Strip, the crisis intervention team of the international organisation Friends of Waldorf Education is back in action, this time in Indonesia.

The reason for the deployment is the earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, which hit the island of Sumatra at the end of September, killing and injuring many hundreds of people. Towns and villages were destroyed.

“Numerous children who survived the earthquake witnessed the death of relatives and the massive destruction of their direct environment and have been psychologically traumatised as a result of the disaster,” the Friends of Waldorf Education said in a press release.

“They urgently require therapeutic help to cope with their experiences,” the organisation added.

The Friends will send an eleven-member team of experts to Padang, the city at the centre of the earthquake zone, from 11 to 25 November to work with the affected children. It consists of teachers, therapists and doctors. The team has previously gained experience in deployments in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the Chinese earthquake region of Chengdu.

In Padang, the emergency team will work together with the department of mental health of the Indonesian health ministry. The deployment is supported by the German foreign ministry.

“In traumatic experiences such as natural disasters or war, the first few weeks are a vital. If the people affected cannot assimilate the experiences by themselves, post-traumatic stress disorder develops, possibly linked with permanent personality disorders. In order to prevent such consequences, the experts sent by the Friends of Waldorf Education will work intensively with the affected children using Waldorf methods,” the organisation explained the deployment.

Such methods include movement and play, maintaining a regular rhythm and artistic activities for the children in order for example to counter disorders of perception and memory, eating and sleeping, resulting from the disaster.

The Friends estimate that the cost of the operation will come to about 30,000 euros (£26,400, US$42,800) which the Friends of Waldorf Education cannot cover by themselves, despite the emergency team working on a voluntary basis. The organisation is therefore dependent on donations.

END/nna/cva

Donations to: Freunde der Erziehungskunst Rudolf Steiners e. V., bank: Badische Beamtenbank Karlsruhe, sort code: 660 908 00, account no.: 1014250, reference: Pädagogische Nothilfe.

Further information: www.freunde-waldorf.de/die-freunde/arbeitsbereiche/pædagogischenothilfe/

Item: 091104-01EN Date: 4 November 2009

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