Madreselva Educational Association dreams of turning its garden into a cultural meeting place in the middle of nature. We have installed in our garden, on its tracks, a beautiful wagon that, once restored, we want to share with the whole community. A real train car that comes back to life full of music, books, stories, workshops, children and adults. Our train no longer rolls, but it makes everyone who passes through it travel with their mind and emotions. Or isn’t it true that reading a book is also traveling?
According to the poet Emily Dickinson to travel far, there is no better ship than a book, and in Madreselva, we cannot agree more!
Let´s tell you a bit about the history of our wagon: The construction of this type of wagon - model "J" Unified- began in 1948, with the aim of transporting goods. It is a 10-meter-long wagon, of which almost 1,800 units were manufactured throughout the country until the 1960s. Today there are only a dozen of these wagons left and none in circulation. The wagon arrived in Madreselva in 2018 crossing Spain thanks to the donation of MARE INGENIERÍA (mare-ingenieria.es), rising through the air with the support of huge cranes to be placed on tracks that have welcomed it with care. Our children have integrated it in their day to day, it is part of their favorite hiding places, their shelter to tell stories and play and now, patient, waits his turn to be protagonist, to be restored, to look beautiful and open its doors to all who want to visit us. Its restoration will fill it with new life! and** thanks to you we will be able to fill it with new experiences! ***
Main features and goals of the crowdfunding campaign
We wish to undertake the restoration of our train wagon to offer a **different and totally ground-breaking cultural space*, plus a beautiful library for our school. Together with the garden where the wagon is installed, and the surrounding natural environment, you will not find a place like this. We are going to turn it into a cultural space in a privileged environment*. The best combination of cultural plans in nature. *
These are our objectives:
- Restore the train wagon installed in the garden of the Waldorf Madreselva Education Association.
- Condition the entrance to the wagon and make it accessible for everybody.
- Equip the wagon with furniture to carry out the intended functions.
- Provide the whole community with an alternative and different space where cultural activities of interest for all audiences, open to all kinds of people from all backgrounds can be carried out.
- Start a collection of books to create the wagon library.
- Design an annual cultural programme of interest for the whole city, which will have the added value of being able to combine it with outdoor plans, and shared online with the world.
- Offer families who are part of the Association an everyday library.
Why this is important
Waldorf Madreselva Educational Association wants to open up to the city and the world. And the best way to do that is to offer what we do best, educate in nature. A beautiful wagon, restored with natural materials and respecting the environment, full of books so that everyone can use them, with a cultural program that offers varied activities for all audiences; this is our dream.
If you are interested in Waldorf pedagogy, in any other alternative pedagogy, respectful of the development of children, in nature, music, painting, reading or any other form of art that you can think of, this is your project. Apart from sharing our dream of seeing the wagon become a container of culture, you can get any our precious rewards, **handicrafts made with natural materials of the highest quality. ***
This wagon is a social project because by changing the education of the little ones we contribute to a powerful change in the people who are going to change the world, and with everyone who trusts in this project we contribute to the change. It is aimed both at * those families who can have a direct benefit by participating directly with their children in the proposed activities, and at all groups of citizens who support a alternative education system. It is also aimed at all our neighbours, adults and children who can be offered an alternative cultural agenda, in the middle of nature, in one of the most beautiful green areas of Ciudad Real, in a garden that will take them to a unique place. Finally, it is also aimed at those people who can receive an emotional benefit by performing a act of generosity that will benefit all children who go through this project and therefore the society in which they will grow up.
Team and experience
Waldorf Madreselva Educational Association was born in 2013, as a result of the concern of a group of families to create a school with a different form of education than the traditional one, the Waldorf pedagogy. Since then until now numerous children have passed through our space to enjoy and learn in our play group. The families that started the project gradually grew, as did our space. We already have more than 30 families, but we continue to work in the same way, as a team and collaborating with each other.
We carry out workshops, street markets, schools for parents, informative seminars and conferences on pedagogy. We offer our space for experts in education, as well as in other fields, to offer their knowledge to society. Our Association, beyond introducing the Waldorf pedagogy, incorporates a social inspiration which includes meetings that enrich and interest different audiences in the city. This project only has the resources provided by the families that are part of it and the help of its supporters in the events we organize.
We count on the collaboration of partners who, on a voluntary basis, donate their time and knowledge in different fields to achieve our goal. These partners also collaborate in:
- Document writing and translation.
- Budget calculation.
- Design and craftsmanship of rewards.
- Receiving rewards, packaging and shipping management.
- Project dissemination on social networks and in a personal way.
- Design, filming and editing of the promotional video.
- Donation of the wagon, transport, rails and beams.
- Works of landscaping of the environment of the wagon.
The proposal to restore the wagon arises from the need to expand the Association with a space to carry out such activities and to accommodate all the neighbors, friends and families who visit us and who are looking for alternative cultural plans, in addition to creating a library space for the use of all children in our play group and the future School that we are about to found.
Who makes up our team?
Our team is made up of all the families that are part of the Association, who have different backgrounds and training. We have teachers, craftsmen, consultants, engineers, designers, administrators, technicians.... And we each bring what we do best to the project. We have learned to coordinate and we try to maximize both our resources and our imagination to build the School we dream of. We have in common a special sensitivity towards children, a concern to change things and contribute as much as possible to their development in a respectful way.
What infrastructure do we have?
In the headquarters of the Association, remodeled by the families themselves and inaugurated in September 2015, we have a centre of 400 m2 that families maintain with a long-term rental and that has, for the moment, five classrooms, a kitchen, bathrooms and multipurpose rooms, plus with 1,500 m2 of outdoor in full nature. In our garden we find the wagon that we want to transform, after this Goteo and with the support of all our patrons, into a beautiful library and cultural room.