Second graduating class of the training ‘Altahia’ in San Juan (Tenerife)

In 2014 we began to dream of a training course in curative education and social therapy that would not only be recognised by the International Training Circle in Kassel/Germany, but also by the School of Health and Social Services of the Canary Islands. Since then, this project has become a reality: 4 years of semi-present training with a total of 1450 certified hours. Of the 28 students who completed the training, 12 were able to obtain the diploma “Educator in social therapy and curative education”, and two more will be able to complete their studies next year. With great pleasure we have completed our second round in November 2019.

Although we consider the contributions made to create in students a deep attachment to the profession, the ability to create healing environments and work with meditative material to be very important, in the final evaluations our students emphasize above all the importance of the artistic process in their educational process. We are pleased to have offered an education in which 50% of the time available in the teaching blocks was dedicated to a wide range of artistic activities with the aim of learning through these arts rather than just accompanying the theoretical subject.

We are looking forward to the future, because in January 2020 we will start a social therapeutic training at the day centre in San Juan/Tenerife, and in March a training course for Waldorf teachers interested in curative education is planned in Madrid. Over the years we have given weekend courses in different autonomous regions of Spain in order to make our working methods known. The last one took place in November this year at the Waldorf training course in Seville in which 30 future Waldorf teachers took part.

We would like to thank Andreas Fischer for his support in the recognition procedure and the group responsible for evaluation in Kassel (Germany) for their support. Thanks also to the 17 teachers who have shared their knowledge and good work during these five years, and the Asociación San Juan de Tenerife, without whom this adventure would not have been possible.

If you are curious, you can follow us on Instagram: formacion_altahia

(Angelines Martinez Cuenca, Natividad Moreno, Fidel Ortega Dueñas, November 2019)