William Eiduks spent six years at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village after a young childhood in a displaced person’s camp in Germany.
William will speak about the experience of being cared for at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village after an early childhood in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany during the 1950s.
The event is free and happens on Thursday evening, 11thMay, between 6:00pm and 7:00pm. (We are only involved in the session on 11thMay).
The venue is in the University’s Pavilion Parade campus: Room G7, 10-11 Pavilion Parade, Brighton, BN2 1RA.
Please do come and listen. We be delighted to see “ex-Pests” attend – and anyone else with a connection to Pestalozzi. We will both be there and would be really pleased to meet up with you for a coffee and chat afterwards, too.
For more details about the Refugee Festival, use this link.
Last week saw the Early Pestalozzi Children Project visit the Pestalozzi International Village Trust in Sedlescombe, East Sussex to present their annual address to incoming students about the early history of their charity.
William explains the early story of the Pestalozzi Children’s Village to the newest Pestalozzi students.
It was a rewarding experience to be enthusiastically received by the new students and some new staff. Their reactions and interest were extremely positive – and they even had valuable suggestions as to what we might add to the presentation.
We were also delighted to be able to make good use of our display equipment, which was purchased earlier this year through our Heritage Lottery Fund “Sharing Heritage” grant. Our new projector, screen, stands and display boards give us an excellent flexibility to make our presentations in almost any location.
As can be seen from the previous posts, last week was exceptionally busy and productive for us. With three activities to attend, we were already looking forward to an exciting week. But we had no idea of the surprises in store for us along the way.
Monday evening’s presentation to the students at Pestalozzi was the best to date. We have very much enjoyed giving this talk each year but we didn’t realise how much interest is now being generated. We could not have been more pleased with the responses from this meeting. A larger audience attended this year and there were more former early Pestalozzi children present. It was also especially rewarding to have some guests who were former carers and teachers in our Pestalozzi lives and who had travelled a significant distance for the evening. This was also the first time Dr Craig Fees (of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust), our supporter and friend, had actually been able to visit our former surrogate home and see what all the fuss was about.
Will & Len with former early Pestalozzi girl Youdon Lhamo.
Tuesday provided a completely unexpected event. In the afternoon we “bumped into” Tibetan former early Pestalozzi child Youdon Lhamo! We had had no contact since leaving Pestalozzi in 1966. A practising midwife, Youdon had planned to visit the Village to meet the current students and tell them something of her life. It was a real pleasure to sit down with her and talk over our Pestalozzi memories and our subsequent journeys.
Former early Pestalozzi girl, Youdon, demonstrates her skill on the Tibetan lute during a presentation at Pestalozzi last week.
On Wednesday evening, we attended the “Business Meets Students” session which introduced the students to the idea of networking opportunities. We were also lucky enough, afterwards, to attend Youdon’s captivating presentation, along with a delightful performance she had arranged with four of the current Tibetan students.
After a day of “recovery and consolidation” on Friday, Saturday morning saw us reconnect with the current PIVT students in an
Len (r) – a surprise meeting with former school-friend, Charlie Fellows.
informal discussion about our early lives at Pestalozzi. After an enjoyable hour with them we were about to begin our journeys home when Pestalozzi staff member, Fay, announced her father was coming in to see us. This turned out to be none other than former Sedlescombe local, Charlie Fellows, who had been Len’s school chum at Claverham! Once again, there was a lot of nostalgic conversation.
All these wonderful moments throughout the last week have reinforced (yet again) just how important Pestalozzi was in our lives – as well as in many other people’s.
Again, our thanks go to the Heritage Lottery Fund for their vital support through their Sharing Heritage grant.
To see another report about our week in Sussex, check Dr Craig Fees’ article on the PETT website – here
Our Project has been invited to participate in the
The venue is in the University’s Pavilion Parade campus: Room G7, 10-11 Pavilion Parade, Brighton, BN2 1RA.
