Lets give our wishes for peace wings: 10,000 crane challenge

Dear colleagues at all Waldorf and Steiner schools in Europe!

In view of the events of the war in Europe, we are all shaken in a way that we hardly thought possible. War in Europe – an unimaginable fact – brought our task as educators and teachers to contribute to a peaceful future and to be able and willing to make peace possible through our pedagogy to consciousness in a dramatic way.

Immediately after Russia’s first military attack on Ukraine, we as educators in our fields of work experienced the concerns, the questions, but also the energy of the children who were just as stunned as we were by the news of the war. This is how it came about that on March 11th, the „Peace Network Waldorf“ was founded! More than 70 schools, kindergartens and other Waldorf institutions showed a sign of peace. There was singing, painting, baking and demonstrations, flash mobs were arranged and rallies planned.

Last but not least, the participation of a Waldorf school from Georgia made it very clear to us that peace is not a question of national borders or different languages, but a question of community, of common spirit and will! We thought “too small” and now we really want to stretch the Peace Network Waldorf further…. All over the world for a peaceful future for all beings.
Therefore we would like to cordially invite you to join us and lend wings to the peace wishes of our Waldorf community, to take part in our campaign “10,000 cranes for peace”!

Cranes are not only a symbol of happiness and peace in Japanese culture. Legend has it that anyone who manages to fold 1,000 cranes will be granted a wish. Ever since Sadako Sasaki died as a victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb – after folding 990 cranes, – the origami crane has become an international symbol of peace and resistance to nuclear weapons.

We would now like to “inspire” the Waldorf Peace Network until Easter (end of April) and wish that it may be carried by as many paper cranes as possible! Can we make 10,000 cranes come together?!

The 12th grade students at the Rudolf Steiner School in Loheland initiated this idea and have already started to fold. Please send us an email to if you are joining us, and let us know the number and a picture of the cranes you have created before the end of April.

Of course everyone can fold the way and time they want: with the class, in kindergarten, at parents’ evenings, at conferences, in team meetings, at breakfast together, in the availability hour, in art classes, in after-school care and All-day schools – and surely there is a special place in every institution where the cranes can be collected and hung?

We look forward to veeery many cranes and every single wish for peace,
Your Peace Network Waldorf Team
Daniel Pumpe, Patrick Kolla-ten Venne, Mischka Kaiser and Tia ten Venne, Hamborn, Germany