Netherlands Country Report - Europe

 

2023

In June 2023, the democratic school with LVE for primary and secondary education in The Hague, De Vrije Ruimte, celebrated its 15 years of existence. During 9 years now the school has been implementing Living Values. To celebrate the anniversary, teachers and students jointly decided to dedicate the entire 2023/24 school year, in terms of education and all activities in and outside school, to the value Unity. One of the teachers designed the special Living Values Round Table game to be played equally by students and teachers.

Living Values participated in two national alternative education conferences titled Children, the Leaders of the Future. The conferences took place in December 2022 and March 2023 and LVE was invited to conduct a number of workshops. It was an interesting effort to generate national attention for Living Values Netherlands, to connect with colleagues and kindred spirits, and showcase the fine LVE educational materials to a wider audience. These contacts are carefully maintained and expanded.

Living Values has been working hard to establish an LVE-based Kindergarten in The Hague. Preparations are at an advanced stage. The wait is for an affordable location.

The Dutch government has been prioritizing citizenship awareness for a year now. In that context LVE has held two LVE workshop for teachers. We look forward that schools will eventually choose LVE not only for awareness of your qualities as a Dutch citizen but also as a basis for the entire education, a Values Based Atmosphere and World Citizenship.

 

 

2021

The call for values such as Diane Tillman (lead author of the LVE activity books) mentioned at the beginning of the millennium has only grown ever since, at least in the Netherlands. LVE Nederland can look back on an albeit quiet year that has yielded interesting connections, fruitful ideas, results and various forms of collaboration. Among other things, we have renewed our website and are delighted with the record number of visitors to our website in 2021. This also clearly shows that the interest in values is growing enormously. This also applies to the realization that we all have values by nature, and that love, peace, respect, caring are qualities of every individual human being. And that the next step is to awaken our values, to apply them and to nurture them in our thinking, doing and being.

Despite three lock downs that made spontaneous and physical contact with schools and aid organizations for children and young adults more difficult, we continued to inform individual teachers and parents about Living Values Education through small-scale workshops and conversations and personally guided them in a follow-up process.

The school De Vrije Ruimte, The Hague, which has been implementing Living Values in their education for many years and who has continuously shown great resilience and creativity, says that they have just decided to make a strong new start with the values after the lock downs. Fresh green leaves are growing on their Living Values tree again!

 

Judo with Respect

Wiring makes Unity visible

Fresh green leaves for Tolerance

 

2020

Exploring, experiencing and even more consciously applying our values"¦it indeed seems to be one of the most valuable, meaningful and beneficial things we can do in this year, for ourselves and others (Chris Drake). An important tool for this, Distant Learning, is provided to us by Living Values Australia. Free downloads of values activities for everyone aged 3-100 years and free guided courses and more than 40 Rainbow booklets (values for young adults, values in business, values and self-reflection etc) see, https://livingvalues.net/distance. Discovering our relationship with values can be a life-changing experience.

Distant Learning now makes Living Values Education available to everyone, everywhere.

• Living Values Nederland offers new workshops close to home, see www.livingvalueseducation.nl
• Global citizenship at your Daycare
• Values for Elderly
• Digital Value Activities for children and parents for discovering one's own natural, universal-human values en creating more love, respect and peace within your family, especially in difficult circumstances.

 

2019

LVE organizes fourteen workshops. Ten (grand-) parent workshops in Paterswolde (Living Values North) and four in The Hague: at a daycare center, a primary school and at The Hague university.

Two national get-togethers (February and June) have been organised for all lve-colleagues (7) in order to strengthen cooperation and deepen our own values by practical cases.

In February, LVE meets again with Unesco about the project 'Global Citizenship and Daycare in three different disadvantaged neighborhoods of The Hague.

In June LVE meets Unicef with a practical proposal for cooperation for which Unicef at the moment sees no opportunity. The LVE school De Vrije Ruimte organizes an exuberant Living Values Festival in the garden of the school, to celebrate the end of the schoolyear. The basis is laid voor a booklet: 'Your Desire for Children and Values', in collaboration with Buddy Netwerk, a municipal social Foundation in The Hague.

In December 2019, Living Values "‹"‹Noord Nederland will close the course of 10 workshops for parents and grandparents with a last cheerful meeting. During this course on the 12 universal core values "‹"‹of LVE, parents and grandparents, caretakers of children (3-9 yrs) in Groningen were given tools for communicating values "‹"‹within their families. The participants received a certificate and the local newspaper wrote a nice promotional article about LVE.

 

2018

LVE Netherland is now concentrated in two locations: The Hague and Paterswolde (Living Values North). In Paterswolde a LVE course for (grand-)parents has started and a workshop has been given at invitation at a primary school in Groningen. In The Hague, a succesful Living Values Education Symposium has been taken place at the Omniversum Museum, organized by teachers and pupils of the Living Values school De Vrije Ruimte. Guests from all over The Hague are invited and Marlies has been given a presentation in the presence of the Dutch Minister of Education, Ingrid van Engelshoven.

Regional Meeting of ALIVE Associates, Crêt-Bérard, Switzerland; From 25-28 September 2019, a number of European representatives from ALIVE member countries, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the President and Vice-President of ALIVE, will meet at the beautiful Crêt-Bérard for a 3 -day European working meeting. 

It is impressive to reunite in the area, where fond memories of the meeting of ALIVE and the General Assembly in 2006 came back. Here we had first met so many years ago and it was heartwarming to see us again. to connect and share our inspirations and challenges over the years.Afterwards we felt inspired to more than double our commitment, recharged as we were by the exciting exchange and a sense of deep connection.

 

2017

Living Values Expands Naturally in Several Directions

"The last time we contributed to the newsletter," wrote Marlies Ludding van Loon, the President of Foundation Living Values Education Nederland, "we reported on the Children's Integration Project 'ToGether'. This project was organised by the foundation OneMelodie, Living Values Education Nederland and The Free Space school in the Hague, the first school in the Netherlands to implement Living Values Education. The project was life changing for the participating children.

Since then, The Free Space school received a financial grant for a 'Parents Participation in Education Project'. During this Living Values-based project, teachers and parents have been learning about and practising how to bring values at school and at home into alignment.

Part of this project currently is a seminar organised by the school: 'The power of peace in education'. This will take place on the 21st of September, UN Peace Day. During the seminar our Book of Peace will be presented. This is a compilation of drawings and interviews with pupils, teachers and parents of the school about peace. The children shared beautifully about their naturally felt responsibility to start with peace themselves, and what helps them to achieve inner peace. Their sharing is so creative and wise.

DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS of LVE

A wonderful circle of people with different competences and from different regions of Holland are now regularly coming together to reflect, exchange ideas and experiences about LVE, and to develop more values awareness. This has resulted in a variety of experiences and projects.

 

• VALUES & NATURE
  Jael, a nature pedagogue, has chosen nature as the focus for children to experience their natural inner values. More and more children are suffering from stress-related problems. They often get distracted from who they are deep inside by the noisy outside world. Jael takes children into nature for walks, excursions, art workshops, children's parties, etc. He creatively uses values activities to help the children refocus and become aware of their authenticity, inner peace and balance while developin self-love and self-respect. Meanwhile, fun is guaranteed.
  
  
• VALUES & TODDLERS
  Patricia, a mother of four and an experienced kindergarten caretaker, who has been involved with LVE for several years has decided to start her own Living Values creche. She is writing her business plan right now. We keep you posted!
  
  
• VALUES & HOMESITTERS
  Merel is a motivated young woman whose heart is with 'stay-at-home' young adolescents with normal cognitive abilities who are not involved in regular education. They prefer to stay at home. De Lans School, a Rudolf Steiner secondary school, offers these youngsters an opportunity to become motivated to learn again. This school for children with special needs has organised a program for a group of students with a wide range of disorders: behavioral problems, computer addictions, ADHD, autism and other pobias and traumas. In her class, Merel and a colleague work with 18 adolescents from 13 to 17 years old. They are combining education with intensive psycho-social guidance in order to get these children back to school. Since the beginning of this year, Merel has gradually introduced Living Values Education activities to her group. After some months her students started to discover how effectively values can work for them. After an LVE introduction to parents, their parents are also participating and supporting the LVE approach.
  
  
• VALUES & PARENTS
  A few months ago, Martina, a grandmother, began a small initiative at her home/garden called 'Summertable'. Through this initiative she offers young parents and parents-to-be a relaxed opportunity to explore values at home and in education. Young families are invited to her table to meet informally and exchange educational experiences.
  
  Martina and friends are also organizing LVE events at the local library and a nearby park where all kinds of happy and enriching living values activities are organised for young families with children.
  
  
• VALUES & NATURAL BIRTH
  Anna is an experienced Rudolf Steiner educator and has a private practice for young children with development disorders. Some time ago she became involved in Living Values Education and began to give LVE workshops at schools. She was also asked to guide a group of midwives who started a center for natural birth, the 'Birth House'. In this center midwives promote natural birth. They wish to connect natural birth to natural living values, not only helping mothers during pregnancy and delivery but also providing LVE workshops to these future parents.
  
  
• VALUES & IMMIGRANTS
  Marjo is one of the five founders of OneMelodie foundation, an organisation for 'Social Education for all Cultures'. Now called Initiative OneMelodie, this autumn they will start a new project called 'The Dutch language and Values'. Marjo has organised many workshops for children of immigrants and refugees, and is also the person who took the initiative to create the Children Integration Project a few years ago. She is a much appreciated member of our Living Values Education circle. Margo commented that she has been committed to values education since the moment she met Diane Tillman in Lebanon many years ago. Diane was in Lebanon to do an LVE workshop with 35 Palestinian refugees who were kindergarten teachers. Together, they all experienced the depth and beauty of LVE."

2016

Peace Day 2015

"In 2015, Living Values Education Netherlands joined 'The Peace in the Park Festival' for the first time in The Hague," reported Marlies Ludding van Loon. "In the beautiful park near the palace of the king in the centre of the city, children and their parents spontaneously participated in various activities on 'peace in our hearts and in the world'. We made peace necklaces, friendship bracelets, peace doves and flags. Meanwhile, we explored how we could deepen the meaning of peace in our own lives, with families, with friends, in class"¦ Thank you Patricia Mosimann, LVE volunteer, for your great ideas and your hard work!"

 

Three More Schools to Implement LVE in The Hague

The democratic school, De Vrije Ruimte (The Free Space), in the Hague has been implementing Living Values Education for the last two years with good results. A few months ago the teachers of the school, with a well conceived and elaborated plan, participated in an education pitch about parents participation in education. They won a price, a solid amount of money, to deepen LVE at their own school and implement LVE in three other schools in The Hague.

The project will especially focus on the following two aspects:

• One: What could help us bring the values of school and home in alignment with each other?
• Two: How can we empower our values so that we are still conscious and express our values even in an environment that is not familiar to us?

Part of the project is a new Dutch translation of the three LVE Activity books (3 to 7 years, 8 to 14 years and young adults) so that the activities will be more accessible for Dutch education.

The Foundation LVE Nederland will be one of seven members participating in this project. More specifically it will focus on guaranteeing the overall quality of the various contributions by participants. The project starts 1st March and ends 28th February 2017.

We will keep you posted!

Marlies Ludding van Loon

"ToGether" - A Creative Values-Based Integration Program Brings Dutch Children and Refugees Together

We would like to share with you the highlights of the children's project 'ToGether' - a joint effort of OneMelodie (A non-profit organisation for Social Education in Utrecht.), the LVE School 'De Vrije Ruimte' in The Hague, and LVE The Netherlands.

In a nutshell -

Over the course of this year, from February through August, we brought together two equally-sized groups of children (ages 6-12) of different cultures and backgrounds - two groups that would normally never have the chance to meet and play with one another. One group of children came from a neighbourhood in Utrecht, mainly home to refugee and immigrant families originating from Sudan, Senegal, Ghana and Morocco, and the other group came from the LVE school 'De Vrije Ruimte' in The Hague,primarily consisting of native Dutch children. There were sixteen girls and four boys altogether.

Goals -

• To learn about each other's world, to experience joy in connecting with children from another culture and to learn to cooperate with them;
• To empower their self-esteem when dealing with children from a very different background;
• To make a 'ToGether CD' with new songs in Dutch about values, sung by the children themselves.

What we organised -

Over several meetings, alternately in Utrecht and The Hague, the children did activities together. For example, they prepared meals, made paintings, played games, danced and sang, they sewed and made all kinds of crafts. In addition, they practiced the songs for the CD in a professional studio. Two values, cooperation and happiness, took a central position and were practised in all activities.

What we experienced -

The first meeting in Utrecht, in a community centre, was a happy and open one. We did all sorts of games to remember each other's sometimes difficult-to-remember names. The second meeting at the school in The Hague was quite a challenge for the children from Utrecht. Travelling by train was a completely new experience and the moment they arrived they were quite exhausted. Also some children felt a bit insecure being surrounded by only white children at the De Vrije Ruimte School.

In total, six gatherings were organised. Each time the children felt more relaxed. Each group independently met a few more times. The children were doing their best in all activities - some had difficulty on concentrating. We felt that singing and dancing were their favourite and the best way to learn and to make contact. The collective singing in a real studio with a real microphone later on was an uplifting experience for all.

Next to the children, the project brought about very good cooperation and understanding between all adults involved (i.e. the volunteers, the teachers from De Vrije Ruimte school, professional musicians who helped us producing the CD, and most parents). In the course of the project they all became more excited because they began to understand the need and importance of the activities and they began to see the changes in the children.

 

Results -

The closing ceremony of 'ToGether' in Utrecht took us (parents and volunteers) by surprise by the great enthusiasm of the children and their elegant way of hosting. The children interviewed each other and the adults about 'cooperation' and 'happiness'. All of them showed tremendous personal growth and gained self-confidence. We danced and sang some of the songs of the new CD - featuring a dozen beautiful children's songs, a poem and two relaxation exercises about values. The mothers of the children of Utrecht spontaneously had prepared delicious sweets and snacks and there was a very relaxed and cheerful atmosphere.

Challenges -

Due to challenges like fundraising and logistics (i.e. the project extended over two cities which made it much more time consuming and expensive because of travel costs"¦but also more of an adventure!) we were forced to postpone the project and keep it as simple as possible.

Assessments -

We interviewed the children before and we collected assessments after the project. We provide you with some of them:

• "I know now that there is no need to become angry if I want something else. I know now that I can just say it."
• "I had an idea and another child thought it was good!"
• "I made a drawing and Isabelle (of other group) said it was beautiful!"
• "I feel surer of myself."
• "There was no space for me left to write my name on the painting we were making together. Someone (of other group) showed me where I still could draw my name on the painting. That for me was the happiest moment of the whole project."
• "I experienced cooperation when we were making friendship bracelets. I did not know how it worked. One girl (of other group) simply explained me how to do it."
• "When you have contact with children from other cultures you can learn much more." One child was asked, "How do you notice that your self confidence has grown by making things?" "I am proud of myself now!" The mother of one girl told us that after school her daughter used to hang around the schoolyard. But now she was hurrying home every day to bag embroider (an activity she learned during the project); she embroidered 'cool girl'.
• It was the first time she thought about herself as a 'cool girl'. Some children from Utrecht (the immigrant and refugee children) felt a little difficulty about the fact that the children from the Hague were 'nothing', that is, not Muslim. After the project this was not important to them any more. They voiced, 'The most important is that they are nice'.

The evaluation showed that the children were happy that they learned practical things together (e.g. baking pancakes, sewing, making friendship bracelets, singing with the microphone) and that there always was a lot of laughing and jokes. They know now that they are all children 'like me' and they know what to say to connect with children they had not meet before. A few children before the project said that they thought the children of the other group were different. After the project they said that all children are the same; they could not even remember that before they had held another view. Their nicest memory? "That we were dancing and singing together and did not quarrel"¦"

Conclusion -

With the rapidly growth and recent influx of so many immigrants and refugees in the Netherlands more people are beginning to realise that it is increasingly urgent to develop effective programs for integration.

Although 'ToGether' was carried out on a small scale - due to limited funding and challenging logistics - we have great confidence that it will have a follow up on a wider scale and affect the way we think about integration in Holland. Integration programs linked to value-based learning or education are equally important to children with foreign roots as to native children and youngsters; that integration is not a one-way street but a joint effort which brings happiness and understanding to all.

Marlies Ludding van Loon, LVE The Netherlands

Marjo Linssen, OneMelodie

2014

LVE News from the Netherlands

The UNESCO office in the Netherlands invited teachers from the 100 UNESCO schools throughout the country to several workshops, lectures and activities on the subject of "World Citizenship and Peace". As Marlies Luddding van Loon, the President of the LVE Foundation in the Netherlands reports, "As LVE has been closely connected to UNESCO in the Netherlands since one year we were asked to give a LVE workshop to teachers of mostly secondary schools. A joyful and relaxed workshop took place in April 2014. We all learned a lot, with special thanks to the teachers of Vrije Ruimte, the LVE School in the Hague, who shared from their own experience how pupils love working on values and how this has brought about a lot of joy and awareness of peace and other values in their school. Some teachers wanted more information and we offered to visit them at their schools at a later date for further exchange."

 

Immigrant and Dutch Children Cooperate - Expect a DVD of Values Songs in December!

The Foundation Onemelodie and a Living Values School in the Netherlands have begun a special DVD project on Values Songs in Dutch. Immigrant children who began LVE activities for children at risk this month, will be singing the soon-to-be created songs with Dutch children. Both sets of children will be engaged in values activities about happiness and cooperation until December. To be composed by two songwriters and planned and organised around the values of happiness and cooperation, the organizers are hoping for happy, cooperative and serious commitment from all involved!

2013 September

The First LVE Model School in Holland - De Vrije Ruimte

"De Vrije Ruimte, the Free Space, is the first school in the Netherlands to commit itself as a whole school to the Living Values Education Concept," reported Marlies Ludding van Loon, the President of the Foundation for LVE in the Netherlands. LVE activities began on September 1, 2013. This benchmark has followed a wonderful year of LVE workshops for educators and children for the educators and board of this school in the Hague, as well as LVE workshops to other organizations.

 

2012 November - June 2013

Workshops Living Values Education the Netherlands

21st November 2012
workshop Teachers - Primary School de Vrije Ruimte, The Hague

8th & 13rd December 2012
workshop Parents & Children - LVE & Foundation OneMelody, Utrecht

 

5th February 2013
workshops Bachelorstudents businessmanagement, logistics & accountancy, Oost-Malle, Belgium

 

8th February 2013
workshop Parents Primary School De Vrije Ruimte, The Hague

21st February 2013
workshop Board Primary School De Vrije Ruimte, The Hague

 

28th March 2013
workshop Teachers Primary School de Vrije Ruimte, The Hague

 

10th June 2013 workshop Children 4 - 7

17th June 2013 Children 8 - 13

24th June 2013 Young adults 13 - 17 yrs, The Hague

 2007 November

This year we had several LVE Educator Workshops. There was one in April and another in May for teachers at a secondary school. In May and June, Neil Hawkes did values education workshop with BZN in Antwerpen, Belgium. Ten teachers from Holland, from both primary and secondary schools attended. In June, there was an LVE Educator Workshop for teachers at a primary school at the Hague.

On July 10, the information LVE association became formally incorporated as the Foundation of Living Values Education.

2006

In August, Marlies van Loon attended the general Assembly of ALIVE at Crêt Bérard, Switzerland, and assumed the position of LVE Coordinator/Focal Point for LVE in the Netherlands.

In November, a new group of LVE trainers held their first LVEP workshop for teachers of nursery schools and primary schools in the Netherlands

On December 13, there was a formal launching of the Living Values Activities books in Dutch in cooperation with BZN in Belgium. On December 14, there was a formal launching of the books in the Netherlands, at the Vrijzinnig Christelijk Lyceum (a secondary school) in the Hague. Dr. Neil Hawks gave a "beautiful and convincing presentation about Living Values Education. He made teachers and pupils laugh about themselves, he let them love themselves, he showed how to take students seriously without losing authority; it was simply great!"

2005

In 2005, there was a search for a translator and editor for the process of translating the Living Values Education series of five books into Dutch. A meeting was held between Marlies van Loon and Marleen de Jonckheere with BZN (Bond Zonder Naam) in Antwerpen Belgium. They made a decision to cooperate closely. Marleen found funds for the translation of the LVEP books into Flemish/Dutch.

2004

From 2000 to 2004, the LVE working group met at the Hague three or four times a year under the leadership of then LVE Coordinator Karen Derks, with Marie-Lisette Derks, Nanette with the Design Academy Eindhoven, Marlies van Loon and people from a variety of faith groups interested in values education.