Saturday 19 October. Vrije School Den Haag Abbenbroekweg. Soft lavender scent in the arts and crafts room. With cotton pads, chalk and fragrant lavender oil, Waldorf school colleagues work concentratedly on a group painting. Outside, teachers stand in a circle. They throw sticks rhythmically to each other. These are just a few examples of the concrete exercises during the conference “Emergency aid pedagogy”.

Together with the Support Service for Waldorf Schools and the International Waldorf School, we invited Bernd Ruf and Barbara Schiller to let people in the Netherlands experience the special work these people do. They have been working with children in crisis situations for almost twenty years. Starting from Waldorf pedagogy and anthroposophy, they have developed many exercises from their own organisations and trained people worldwide in this special form of Waldorf pedagogy. Bernd Ruf founded the Parzivalzentrum in Karlsruhe, a Waldorf centre for trauma pedagogy that also works internationally. And Barbara Ruf heads the organisation stART International. StART is often asked for interventions of several weeks in areas where war, natural disasters or other crises have arisen.

During the conference, both speakers talked about various situations in crisis areas abroad, where they have been deployed with their teams in recent years: harrowing images were shown of emergency situations in Lebanon, Gaza, the earthquake in Turkey, China, the Philippines. stART International by Barbara Schiller and the Parzivalzentrum by Bernd Ruf have been active in various places around the world for an action of several weeks in the last two decades to help children in emergency situations with their pedagogical approach.

Because exercises were also done, it quickly became clear to the participants of the conference that you can achieve a lot with simple exercises. Circle games, drawing and painting assignments were carried out in a playful way. The examples they gave inspired many of those present to apply it in their own teaching practice and to learn to observe well.

What next?

At the end of the day, an appeal was made to those present to collaborate on a pedagogical emergency aid group in the Netherlands. Because there are also crisis situations for children in our country. Think of children of refugees, from disadvantaged neighborhoods. But there are also children in the “regular” Waldorf schools who have suffered damage. A dozen colleagues responded to the appeal.

Sunday 20 October

The conference was concluded with an open discussion between the employees of the Parzivalzentrum, the team of stART and five employees of the IHF.

The International Aid Fund for Waldorf Schools supports emergency aid pedagogy initiatives in various countries. Donations go, for example, to initiatives where crisis pedagogy is used, such as in Chile, South Africa, Kenya, to name but a few examples.