The two-day meeting of the project ‘Advocacy strategies for Forest
Kindergartens in V4 countries’ supported by the Visegrad Found - ID No.
21820028 - was successfully held on the 19th-20th of September, 2019. The
project partners and the organizations dealing with outdoor kindergarten
education in the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and
Hungary) meet regularly 4 times a year to help the initiation of the
legislation as well as developing professional conditions of outdoor education.
After Slovakia and the Czech Republic now it was Hungary that gave
place to the 2-day meeting. The training event, with the title ‘Risk-benefit
and their management in Forest Kindergartens’, took place in the experimental
outdoor kintergarten project of the Free Waldorf Kindergarten in Gödöllő. Two
renowned Scottish experts, Lynn McNair O.B.E., teacher of Edinburgh University
and leader of Cowgate Under Fives Ceter Forest Kindergarten and Luke Addison,
leader of Riverside Cottage Nursery, gave lectures to approximately 30 participants,
among them Hungarian kindergarten teachers interested in outdoor education, on
the benefits and positive effects of outdoor teaching and shared their
experience gained during the many years of outdoor teaching in Scotland. This
form isn’t at all new in the world as it can look back on decades over the
globe from Denmark, through Germany to the United States. Then Tereza
Valkounová, Ph.D., leader of the Association of Czech Forest Kindergartens (ALMŠ)
held a practical training, where
the participants could learn about the know-how of risk-benefit assessment in
Forest Kindergartens.
On the second day - after Bratislava and Prague - a Roundtable
discussion for decisionmakers was held in Budapest. The Agricultural Ministry
gave place to the professional event, in
which about two dozens of participants took part. Besides the members of the
foreign partner organizations in the project and the foreign experts invited, representatives
of local ministries having competence in natureby (green) kindergartens and
their relevant agencies also participated in the event: departments responsible for Public Education, as well as Family
and Youth-affair at the Ministry of Human Capacities (EMMI); department for
Environmental Affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture; the Educational Authority;
the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture ; and the National Park of the Highlands of Lake Balaton. From the
Hungarian side representatives of the local fellow-organization of the project,
Association for Farm-Based Education as well as the initiative „Joining up
Forces for Outdoor Education” were attending the event. In the course of the
event experts of the project introduced the advantages of outdoor (forest)
education in kindergartens and the international experiences. The Czech example
was emphasized, as it was the first of the Visegrad countries where the
regulatory environment of forest kindergartens has been initiated. This
encouraged the development of affined initiatives as the number of member and
fellow-organizations of the Czech patner has gone up to 140 in the recent few
years. The event, held in two languages, ended up in discussing the arisen
questions and exchanging points of view, in the course of which further
possibilities for cooperation between the outdoor education initiative and the Authoroties
emerged.
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