Impressions of a Conference
Our last ENSWaP annual conference took place in beautiful Veszprém, an hour and a half away from Budapest. The organising group, under the banner of dear Márti had thought of everything, and it made us feel so comfortable and grateful the whole way through… not only due to the lovely goulash and other delicious food, but all those smiles, the efficient management of details, etc., etc… Together with the large group of Hungarian parents, attendance was soaring well in the sixties with two new countries represented among our score of 14. Welcome to Poland and Ukraine! It was great to have you and we hope to see you back every time!
It was our ninth conference and just like a child’s stage of evolution around age 9, my little finger had whispered that this was going to be a turning point in our history. Hopefully we would have the feeling, that from now on we could stand on our feet and feel part of the surrounding world. A truly good feeling and oh, so encouraging! Our fate was in our hands and our motivation the engine enabling us to climb more and more steps towards a strong network of parents and friends of Waldorf education. Why not even be bold enough to dream of a Federation of National Parents’ Associations who could then work hand in hand with the national Waldorf Steiner federations assembled in ECSWE?
To sum it up, during this wonderful meeting, I started having visions of our joint movements gaining more and more battles towards full recognition and automatic state funding. What a fantastic feeling!
So much more rejoice-full information is included in this newsletter, including the dates and places of our next meetings where we hope to have more newcomers and of course all the old-timers.
We are also hopeful that you will contact us through our site which is being professionally modernised and “functionalised”, thanks to Gergely from Hungary, which means you can send us your feelings, impressions, suggestions, happy news and more…
My conclusion is that not only are our links to each other growing stronger, but we have grown into a group of true friends with whom to hold hands and work towards our ideal of more and better Waldorf education for our children, grandchildren and those of our neighbours and friends, making it become a worldwide beautiful reality and a more beautiful world.
Written by Mariam, and surely shared by Ahmed, Anita, Christopher, Ellen, Gabriela, Gitte, Hilde, Karin, Márti and Monica.