We aimed to build a small hut for our growing community for the winter in the heart of Tábor, Czech Republic. Our place is a beautiful garden that had no indoor facility last year. As we work with small children from the age of 15 months to 4 years old, it is crucial to have a warm place for cold winter days. We have an outdoor programme and we value the benefits of nature-based education. On the other hand, we know how important it is to keep our little ones warm and happy.
We started to build the cottage last summer. The project goals included having a wooden stove inside the cottage, and a big terrace in front of it. We planned to buy an old cottage, renovate it and also buy second-hand but good-quality items where possible to realize this project. We are committed to environmentally friendly solutions and this is a great and indirect message for our participants on how to take care of nature.
We managed to finish the building process by the end of October as planned. We could already use the cottage with the families during the Late Autumn and Winter Term. We have just closed a fundraising campaign that we started last October to cover our investments for the costs of the materials that were needed. DEY Mini-Grant was added to this project budget. Building the small hut was hard work and was completely done by volunteers mostly by our family and close friends. There were no fees paid for our volunteers and it is important to mention because we feel that it shows the power and commitment of the community.
The third goal of DEY is to promote appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms and to support
educators in counteracting policies and practices that undermine whole child health and optimal learning. We believe that our programme gives a lovely opportunity for children and their parents to experience real play and support children’s development at their own pace.
Some of our children will go to kindergarten from September and the parents chose a Waldorf kindergarten after being part of our playgroup. They said that after this programme it was very clear that children need this type of environment to be able to play as long as they can and be nurtured as whole human beings. Realising our project – having a warm place for the winter – made it possible to keep families in the playgroups.
During the first winter, many families stopped coming because it was too cold to spend two hours outdoors with these tiny children. Parents are inspired by our approach towards children and they can realize the importance of play and the precious time of childhood. We contributed to children’s health and well-being as we were able to provide a cosy and warm place where we shared a meal and children could continue playing.
We introduced Parents Sessions to share ideas and bring inspiring topics for parents e.g. child development, neuroscience in connection with brain development, toddler years learning and why play is so important for children. These informal chats are very powerful and make parents more engaged and more interested in exploring these topics in depth. After all, parents will be more aware of their choices about their children’s education and will be more empowered with research-based knowledge. We also organised a creative workshop for parents so they could learn how to make hand-made (needle-felted) teddy bears for their children.
These creative workshops empower parents in many ways. They can relax and recharge so they have more patience with their children. They explore their creative potential which also contributes to their well-being. We all know that caring for children starts with caring for parents. A relaxed and happy parent can ensure the well-being and healthy development of the child.
The impact of our project is way more than we originally expected. We work with 14 families and organise family programmes from time to time besides the families, grandparents and other relatives are invited as well (e.g. Lantern Walk, Advent Spiral, MayDay etc.). We organise Parents Sessions, Creative Workshops and other Parenting Workshops on a regular basis where approximately 5-12 people are present. A small part of our garden is a community garden where local families and elderly people grow their own food. We share this garden with the local Waldorf kindergarten and they also organise programmes for families from time to time. There is a joint Easter Fair each year where the Waldorf School, the kindergarten and GentleNest families are invited with all the educators, children and their families.
We estimated 80 people in our application form but counting all the above-mentioned people impacted, is more than 300 people. Our challenges were mostly around financial difficulties and lacking of people who could help us in the building process. We still managed to finish everything on time but most of us were exhausted.
We received 500 USD and used it to buy the wooden stove for the cottage. We bought the stove from a private person who had bought this stove but had never used it. It was a completely new stove but for a quarter of the price that we would normally pay. We could heat the small hut each time during our programmes. We could make hot tea and even pancakes. :)
