BRUSSELS (NNA) – The European Parliament has called on host countries to help integrate child refugees in their national education systems and points out in a resolution adopted at the end of November that education reduces the risk of young people becoming engaged in extremism.

MEPs call on all such countries “to ensure that refugee children are given full access to education, and to promote as far as possible their integration and inclusion in the national education systems”.

The parliament…

Peace building was a major topic at the conference and annual general meeting of the German Anthroposophical Society in Kassel earlier in the year. The speakers on the topic included the well-known conflict researcher and organisational consultant Prof. Friedrich Glasl from Salzburg. NNA took the opportunity for an interview with Prof. Glasl. Some of the references are to the Ukraine conflict which was in the news at the time of the interview. Although the conflict has meanwhile dropped out of…

KARLSRUHE (NNA) – “Wars, conflict and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere.” So says the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, in its latest annual Global Trends report published earlier this year.

At the end of 2014 the number had risen to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago, the agency says, and given the upheavals of 2015 this rapidly rising…

BERLIN (NNA) – Every year, 24 billion tons of fertile soil is lost worldwide due to non-sustainable use. With the International Year of Soils 2015, the United Nations has been working to raise awareness of the importance of soil conservation for the natural ecosystem.

According to the Soil Atlas produced by the German Heinrich Böll Foundation, even in countries with falling population figures an increasing amount of soil is being used up. Every day around 77 hectares of soil partially or…

CAIRO (NNA) – The Egyptian SEKEM Initiative has received the “Land for Life Award 2015” from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The prize acknowledges the outstanding contribution of the Initiative to the fight against soil erosion.

In its comments at the conferment of the prize, the UNCCD explicitly praised the use of biodynamic cultivation methods in the recovery of desert floors. “We are very impressed with the success that SEKEM has achieved in the…

PARIS/BERLIN (NNA) – Large numbers of people across Europe have gone online to declare their solidarity with the victims of the Paris attacks.

So far almost 170,000 people have signed the online declaration of solidarity launched on Sunday by the German civil society campaigning organisation “campact”, partnered in Europe with “38 Degrees” in the UK and “Uplift” in Ireland among others, with the aim of reaching 200,000 signatures. The declaration will be published in the French newspaper Le…

Since 2006, the international organisation Friends of Waldorf Education has used the methods of emergency education to help children and adolescents psychologically traumatised by war and natural disasters. Most recently it was in Nepal in May to help in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake there. But the emergency education team from the organisation is not only concerned with immediate measures in crisis situations but also to set up structures which can offer long-term help for those…

LONDON (NNA) – There are few things which cannot be obtained on the Internet and the availability of fresh, locally sourced organic food which used to be the preserve of farmers‘ markets has also moved online.

Bonativo, an “online farmers’ market experience”, was started by Christian Eggert, a business economics graduate of the private Witten/Herdecke University in Germany, who launched the service in Berlin in 2013. He has meanwhile expanded to London, where Bonativo came online in February…

ALBUQUERQUE/USA (NNA) – Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of nonviolent communication, died on 7 February at the age of 80 in Albuquerque/New Mexico.

Rosenberg had been an inspiration, pioneer and  model for many people, the German Association of Nonviolent Communication says on its website: “The model and attitude of nonviolent communication was his life’s work. It continues to live in all people who make it their own and pass it on to others.”

Rosenberg was born in Ohio in 1934 and nine…

KASSEL (NNA) – Four hundred years ago Landgrave Moritz in Kassel published a couple of small books: the manifestos of the Fraternity of Rosicrucians. They triggered violent controversy across Europe and its followers were persecuted as heretics.

A small R.C. in the corner of a document, the fingers represented in an unusual pose by the artist in a painting – these were the hidden signs with which the members of the Fraternity identified themselves to each other. For the greatest secrecy was…