Dear friends,

On March 8, 2011, about one year after I wrote to all of you that I intended to leave the YouthSection in summer 2011, we confirmed Constanza Kaliks as the new leader of the YouthSection. Constanza Kaliks lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil and is a teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School and the Waldorf teacher training. She is known to the brazilian youth since she often gives workshop and translates lectures. She is also a mentor for many young people. She is 43 years old, married, and has two children. She and her family will move to Switzerland in December 2011 and she will officially take over the leadership on January 1, 2012. This means that the two of us will share responsibility for the section from August 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011.

We really look forward to working together and making the transition as healthy as possible. It is important for us that the network keeps on existing and growing so that there will be no gap. With a new leader, there will also come new generations and topics. This situation should be able to walk side by side with what is already there.

We have started to work with the question of building a new team, a team that can carry the YouthSection in this transition time and hopefully stay on for a while. From August to December this year I will come to Dornach regularly and in that way keep the red thread and support the new team.

In October, Constanza will visit Dornach for about 10 days and that gives us the possibility to really work together as a team, go through all aspects of the YouthSection, and start to find ways of developing initiatives together.

Here are some events we're sure of in the coming year:

-In February there will be the “Seminar in February,” known as February Days.

-During Whitsun (late May) there will be an international youth conference with the Christian Community in Germany. The YouthSection is invited to be part of it.

-In (northern) Summer 2012 the intention is to have an international initiative meeting in Dornach so we can gather the main initiatives worldwide and work on topics and impulses for the future.

Constanza will also be active in the Studies at the Goetheanum, and as far as I can understand her focus has to do with the understanding and the respecting of our contemporary time; the time we are living in.

This is what I wanted to share with you now! Constanza will write more in a later issue of the eNews.

With Constanza I can only say that we have found a person who will continue the work we have started and at the same time include new generations with their questions and initiatives.

It is a pleasure and an honor for me to welcome her, and I can assure you: I am so happy about this new step for the YouthSection!!

All the best,

Elizabeth