IV news:
In the third attempt after 2020 and 2021, the General Assembly of IV could finally take place in Riga/Latvia from November 4-6. About 30 people from 12 European countries were happy to meet at the Catholic High School in Riga and to exchange ideas on how Christian schools can accompany children and young people in this time of crisis and war in such a way that they dare hope and keep confidence. Prof. Dr. Henning Schluss, educational scientist at the University of Vienna, focused in his lecture on the challenges posed by global climate change. Dr. Gerdien Bertram-Troost, Professor of RE at the Free University of Amsterdam, asked about the tasks of Christian schools in a “low-trust society”. After these two main lectures, Bianca Kappelhoff from the Comenius Institute in Münster demonstrated in a workshop the possibilities of using a “digital peace map”, which was created in the framework of the ErasmusPlus project “Schools joining up for Communities of Peace”. The dense and intensive study day was concluded with two film reports on the schooling of Ukrainian refugee children in Hungary and Slovakia, contributed by the two board members Judit Hallgátoné and Marián Damankoš.
The statutory part of the AMV dealt with the usual formalities: Annual Report 2022 and Annual Plan 2023, Financial Reports 2021/22 and Financial Plan 2023. In addition, president Piet Jansen (Netherlands) was confirmed in office for another four years, as well as Marián Damankoš (Slovakia) as a board member. A cultural program consisting of a musical welcome and presentation of the school on Friday evening and a visit to the Latvian National Library and the Riga Art Nouveau Quarter on Sunday morning rounded off the program. The participants experienced an extremely successful meeting. We thank Anna Jermakoviča, principal of the Catholic High School, for her great hospitality, and Zbignevs Stankevičs, the Archbishop of Riga, for his prayer of blessing in the ecumenical spirit on Saturday morning!