ππππππππππππ πππππππ – Chiguru, a Waldorf Kindergarten (Bangalore)
Chiguru a Waldorf Kindergarten was born in the year 2017. It started as a homeschooling initiative with two children and saw an organic increase in the number of children year on year.
During the process of building daily, weekly, and annual rhythms for children, the educators involved in the well-being of the children noticed a shift in their beingness. The educators developed a close connection with nature and had to learn to hold themselves back from reacting to a childβs behavior. Educators involved with children underwent comprehensive training and mentoring from the mentors of the Sadhana Association. We also had the opportunity to be mentored by mentors across the globe on a few occasions.
From the beginning of the Waldorf kindergarten journey, Chiguru hosted a biodynamic garden in its outdoors. Children participated actively in tending to the garden daily, and soon the garden had enough to supply vegetables to the school kitchen.
With the outbreak of Covid in 2020, Chiguru took initiatives to empower parents, who in turn created healthy rhythms – playtime, meals, and sleep time – with their children at home. This phase of working with parents gave an understanding of the challenges that the parents of young children were going through and at the same time the growing unmet needs of the young children.
In the academic year 2022-23, Chiguru started operating in the physical space with 15 children in a 1500 sq ft indoor space and 1500 sq ft outdoor space. We created a comprehensive daily, weekly, and annual natural rhythm for children.
We used the ecosystem of educators, psychologists, biography consultants, farmers, doctors, and other therapists from the Waldorf community and conducted weekly enablement programs for parents to empower them in their parenting journey. Soon we were more than full with children in our smaller space and were forced to move to a newer campus.
In the academic year 2023-24, Chiguru moved to a place that was closer to nature with an indoor and outdoor space of 8000 sqft. Here children soak themselves in nature and are attended to by experienced Waldorf pedagogy-trained teachers. Parents are enabled by the ecosystem which we have established organically over the years.
We are now a community of 30-plus children and their parents. We look forward to meeting each other at our annual festivals for Diwali, Christmas, and parent engagement sessions.
