July 2012 - Waldorf School Windhoek

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© Norbert Seilheimer © Melanie Pfnuer © Norbert Seilheimer Simone de Picciotto in her element: Conducting “We are the world, we are the children”, with Hit the Beat and three other choirs (200 singers) in the Aula of the Freien Schule Anne-Sophie in Künzelsau (left). Short visit at Dome in Worms (right). > by a student’s idea. A young German 12-grader developed the idea to do a drum project. His teacher, Ms Simone de Picciotto, supported that project and began to attend drumming workshops herself. Soon the first drums had been bought and the first drumming group founded. Since then, Simone has been regularly drumming and singing with children in schools. Seven years later, Ms de Picciotto came to Namibia to teach music at the Waldorf School in Windhoek where she continued to work Donations received during the tour Total: 16.095 E Concert donations 11.475 E Namibia Tour Shop 4.620 E Donation being handed over to Ilse Lang, long-serving active supporter of the Waldorf School Windhoek. The cheque valued at 3500 Euros is being handed over by Sascha Kaiser. (f.l.t.r) Ilse Lang (Founder of the ALISA Trust), Sascha Kaiser (Sales and Financial Manageress of the Culture and Events GmbH), Uwe Mandler (Pedagogical Head of the ALISA Centre) and Heike Müller (Project leader Culture and Events GmbH). together with her students on the music project. Tonight, we will be able to enjoy the fruits of this intense work, the programme “HIT THE BEAT”, which is already quite known in Namibia. Please, enjoy with me, and be inspired by the rhythm of a young and ambitious choir from Namibia. Thank you! H. E. Neville Gertze, Ambassador of the Republic of Namibia .................................................... Voices of pupils Staying with guest families in Berlin: We arrived on the 9th of June at the Waldorfschule in Berlin. We unpacked our suitcases and one of the teachers there announced our guest families who welcomed us nicely and we then drove home and had dinner with the family. Some of us went out that night to see the city. It was a good weekend, Berlin is amazing and very big, for some of us it took hours to get back to the house. I stayed with Samantha at a girl‘s house that we knew before, which was really nice and made everything easier. Our guest father took time to show us the city and at night Lisa (the girl we stayed with) took us out to Kreuzberg and to the Alexanderplatz, we enjoyed that very much. Nikita Kinder The Performance in Stuttgart Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe: To start off it was a great experience to have such an opportunity. To be in Germany was a gift I simply appreciate with so much love and joy. Well the performance we had in the first Waldorf school was amazing. We had a hall with great sound, felt warm and welcoming. We met up with Mrs Storm and the Spitta family. The view and the great audience we had made it all the worth while, we were so lucky to have a standing ovation in each performance. Nade Farmer .................................................... Voices of guests Concert in the Mozart Hall in the Wormser Cultural Centre: I have never seen a school performance with so many talented people before… and I have experienced many!!! There is so much we could learn from them. The children of the Waldorf School have such a good stage presence, no matter where one focusses on the stage – even up to the last row – one could sense that each and every child carried the rhythm from within. Even the teachers impressed me – the connection between the conductors and the learners was fascinating – attentiveness, discipline and despite this ease! They all radiated happiness and I noted that they were all SELF conscious – excellent! In the song with the soloist, tears of joy rolled down my cheeks. The girl really moved me. Hats off, especially with what you have achieved with this school in Namibia!!! You .................................................... Trimester Festival and Get Together for all Parents Sat 23 June 2012 at our School can really be proud of this and I am happy that I was able to attend this performance. Concert during the open air concert at Hermersberg: It was a wonderful evening for me. It is truly fantastic what the youth can do, how much joy and enthusiasm could be felt. And the teachers and choir leaders’ engagement was admirable. And it was very good to briefly meet one of our future Patron Marion Würth students, to talk to him. Now he already knows someone at the Goethe-Institute in Schwäbisch Hall. This is often helpful initially in a new environment. Wonderful how the Würth family supports the young people! My absolute respect! © Katharina Wyss © Melanie Pfnuer
© Norbert Seilheimer © Norbert Seilheimer Dear pupils, dear parents, dear friends, 8 1/2 years ago in May 2004 I was traveling on the highway in Germany with my husband and he suggested to me that we apply for a job in Bavaria. I was in shock and answered spontaneously that before I ever, ever move to Bavaria I would prefer to move to Africa. This was without any substance because I had no connection to Africa whatsoever. We arrived at our house a few hours later and on the table I found a magazine from the Freunde der Erziehungskunst with an article about the Waldorf School Windhoek. To make a long story short: 6 weeks later in June I visited the school, in August I signed a contract and began to pack up my house. I January 2005 I started my work here. Had I known about the many challenges I was to face here, I do not know if I would have had the courage to do this and yet I am glad I did for I would have missed some of the most wonderful years of my life. The past 7 1/2 years have been a melting pot of the most intense feelings: joy, surprises, excitement and also many, many challenges. I do not regret a single day I spent with the pupils at this school. The amazing trips I was allowed to enjoy: going to Germany twice, to Capetown once, the Canyon River, the many Parzival hikes, enjoying Namibia’s amazing landscape. All the theatre projects and showtime events we did were always something I enjoyed immensely. Just before I arrived I was asked to start with teaching a biology main lesson – this was a totally new subject to me and I was extremely worried how I would manage – however always just one step ahead of the pupils I somehow managed to go forwards – biology and history becoming my favourites... Music has always been my passion and building up the drumming as well as the choir is something that meant very, very much to me. I know that choir work is always a challenge when it is compulsory, however this last project was so amazing that I hope it has really planted the seed of future music in the school. I am extremely grateful, that I was able to experience something like this at the end. “Thank you pupils for sharing these years with me and enriching my life” Simone de Picciotto But overall I want to thank the pupils for the amount of trust and loyalty they showed towards me – I always felt welcomed by them and I enjoyed going into almost every lesson I taught in the past years. I mentioned at the trimester festival, that I was very naive when I came here and did not realise what the situation in Namibia was, growing up in the USA in the 1970’, when the civil rights movement had just peaked and integration in schools was a major theme, it was a surprise to me to find myself in a similar situation here in Namibia again. However it seemed to meet my personality which has always been to embrace youth and to encourage every single young person to find his place in society and to realise the importance of every single individuality in society and the impact his little deeds can have. I explained to the pupils this week how I feel the highest aim for every human is to become a hero in his area meaning: A hero is one who gives himself to something bigger than himself because he has dreams and can make them reality and grow beyond himself and thereby really make a difference in this world. Thank you pupils for sharing these years with me and enriching my life – they were the most © Katharina Wyss passionate years of my life and I will never forget them. I also want to thank all the parents for their support. Without you this would never have been possible and I thank you for all the positive feedback and goodwill you showed to me. Of course the same goes to my colleagues who entrusted me to build up the high school and supported my ideas and tolerated my sometimes very energetic and decisive approaches. You are all wonderful people and I am sure the school is in wonderful hands. I leave you all to be with my daughters and to bring a bit of quietness into my life, time to regain new strength and conquer new fields. I will be only working part time for the next year, will commence further education as school mediator and hope to start various projects with young people, obviously mainly musical projects. And maybe I can come back here to help in specific areas as a guest teacher. I would love that. Thank you all, you will stay in my heart forever and dear pupils never forget my main line: let freedom ring throughout your lives and always know: you can do whatever you set your heart on. Simone de Picciotto www.hit-the-beat.org www.facebook.com/hitthebeatconcert www.youtube.com > hit the beat namibia © Norbert Seilheimer
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July 2012 - Waldorf School Windhoek

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