Walking and Talking in Osterburken

On the occasion of Kurt Hahn’s 125th birthday the German Award Association hosted the first international Kurt Hahn seminar. The association was pleased to welcome Cristal de Saldanha, Executive Director of Programme, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award International Association, as keynote speaker and representatives of the Finnish, Dutch and Luxembourgish Award as well as German and New Zealand delegates to the recent IGE in Kenya.

The seminar was a crucial commemoration of our founder and a timely reminder of the ethics underpinning the Award. The lively discussions at the Award Centre and during strolls through the Indian summer of southern Germany highlighted the quality of the papers submitted by a wide variety of international stakeholders. These papers will be presented in form of a Festschrift during the forum in Malta 2012.

The Association held a public celebration as part of the weekend to honour Kurt Hahn and share results of the seminar. On this occasion the position of National Coordinator of the German Award was also formally handed over to Karsten Vogel and Barbara Oehl was recognized for 25 years of contribution to the Award in several European countries.

Participants and contributors suggested that the weekend should be followed by similar events giving opportunity to reflect on what implications Hahn’s philosophy has for our daily work. As Cristal de Saldanha put it “we are rooted in a sound framework that demonstrates a regard and respect for humanity and is an anchor that we must always remember.”