Our mission
Education as a fundamental right and driving force
Education is a fundamental right that everyone is entitled to, regardless of age, gender, or background. At the same time, education is an expression of an optimizing force that runs through history in an observable and describable way.
But education is not a sure-fire success. There are countless barriers to access, especially in problem areas of the Global South. These barriers hinder creative learning, technical training, and intellectual development, especially for children and young people. We want to open doors and pave new paths through training, know-how, and qualification.
Poverty, hunger, and the daily pressure to survive are often associated with great mental strain, emotional stress, and aggressive social exclusion.
Indifference, neglect, discrimination, and stigmatization then intensify for those affected, creating almost hopeless psychological and social traps that limit curiosity, learning discipline, creativity, and spiritual interests.
In addition, there is often a lack of educational infrastructure: kindergartens, schools, learning materials, religious facilities. Or natural disasters, violence, and war threaten and destroy places and institutions for spiritual teaching and inspiration. In all these cases, those affected need new opportunities and access to education.
It is about access to three different dimensions of education:
Instrumental knowledge encompasses all skills required to secure and optimize one's livelihood. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, practical skills for everyday life, vocational training and continuous learning for life, job and personal development are minimum standards for coping with life. In many places, these standards are not met.
Social skills encompass all interpersonal skills needed for a satisfying social life. These include empathy, consideration, and communication; the ability to achieve goals together with others, resolve conflicts without violence, and fit into proven established institutions. People learn and practice the basic rules for this early on in their family, elementary, and primary education. All forms of relationships, personal and collegial, build on this later and enable belonging, community, and social and emotional well-being; thereby stabilizing social order and its peaceful evolution.
Essential development ultimately refers to qualities that spring from the very essence of our existence. It is about the ability to be, and thus about qualities that want to be inspired, discovered, and realized.
Strength and determination to separate truth from falsehood, will and dedication to see obstacles as steps along the way, or serenity and confidence to be who you are without fear.
Proven traditions of wisdom—religion and philosophy—open up different paths to their realization; these paths should be open to everybody.
All three dimensions of education—especially when combined—increase the chances of individuals and communities alike to understand and resolve the often subtle and difficult-to-recognize interrelationships between ignorance, indifference, dependence, manipulation, abuse, and violence. In this respect, education is one of the most powerful drivers of sustainable change and development.