From a family business to a forge for the future: living inclusion at Hagsfelder Hof
Growth for the Parzival Center in Karlsruhe-Hagsfeld: new educational prospects for adolescents with special support needs are being created on a farm in the immediate vicinity of the socio-educational facility. To this end, the long-established farm is being run on a non-profit basis.
The transfer of the Beideck family's Hagsfelder Hof farm to the non-profit organization Karlsruher Verein zur Förderung junger Menschen will create a place that enables education and personal development through meaningful work with animals, plants and the earth. This complements the wide range of services offered by the Parzival Center, which operates an inclusive Waldorf school, a residential youth welfare facility and various socio-pedagogical education and counselling centers. The action-oriented concept, which already includes horticulture and animal-assisted education at the school's own Sonnenhof farm, will be ideally enhanced by the fully-fledged farm: practical, theory-based training courses or supervised workplaces for adolescents with special needs are soon to be set up here.
"The Parzival Center couldn't miss this unique opportunity to take over a farm in the immediate vicinity!" explains Anna Elisabeth Bresser, project manager at SAGST. "We are therefore delighted to be able to support our long-standing funding partner in this pioneering step." At a time when children and young people are increasingly overwhelmed by media and suffering from a lack of exercise, the farm offers a valuable counterbalance with its natural learning environment. "The project also contributes to the preservation of an ecologically valuable farm that would otherwise not have continued in its current form," says Bresser. With around 22 hectares of grassland, laying hens, cattle breeding, a farm store and a pasta factory, the Hagsfelder Hof is a living organism that will be preserved and given new social significance by being handed over to charitable hands. In addition, the conversion to organic or biodynamic farming is firmly planned - thus a model farm is taking shape that fruitfully combines education, agriculture and inclusion.
