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WGA Asien

The World Goetheanum Association was able to engage Walter Siegfried Hahn as coordinator of WGA Asia. Walter Siegfried Hahn has, with Koberwitz 1924, been a partner of the WGA since 2019 and has built up a WGA Asia network in recent years, in particular for the live stream of the third and fourth WGA Forum for Asia, which he moderated both times. A regular work of the Asia branch of the World Goetheanum Association began in 2022 with monthly, public zoom events since February.

A core group of committed people - from the CEO of a 15,000-employee company to the small businesswoman, from agriculture to the arts and education to industry - have been meeting online since May to advance the work of the WGA and prepare for the 2022 Forum.

The first event brought together three contributors from Thailand, Mexico and the USA on the theme of Community Support Agriculture. In some of the 58 participants this triggered euphoric reactions and calls for cooperation. One result was the realization that both the German-American "Community Supported Agriculture“ (CSA) and the Japanese "teikei" go both back to Rudolf Steiner. Another formed after many participants understood the event and the WGA in general as something exclusive to agriculture. This misunderstanding brought the insight how strongly biodynamic agriculture is practically involved in the emergence of new entrepreneurial and economic impulses.

In the second event, dedicated to India, a wide range of innovation and social impact became evident as three very different companies presented themselves: largest Demeter tea plantation in India; production of musical instruments and installations with vulnerable youth; medicine, agriculture and art.
Finally, the event with Helmy Abouleish (SEKEM)/Egypt) made clear the full impact of clear and spiritually-based entrepreneurial action. Including the Chinese audience, for whom simultaneous translation was organized, it attracted 180 participants. A more internal discussion then took place at the end of May to consolidate the previous input-oriented events. The participants also more or less represent the core group of the WGA Asia, which is now shaping the further work and preparing the forum in September.

So far we have been able to reach several hundred people from a variety of disciplines and countries: Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, India, Bangla Desh, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia. The only permanent participant from Europe, Ricardo Pereira from the Ruskin Mill Trust in England, plays an important role with his inputs and questions, which encourages us to also invite other people from Europe: take part in one or the other meeting - mutual inspiration and learning seems to be a particular likelihood due to the different backgrounds and experiences.

These differences are massive, however, and despite experience in global economic relations, it would be presumptuous to think that one can get an easy overview of the cultures of "Asia". Distrust and the natural belief that each party should enrich itself as much as possible are particularly evident in China. It is a special task here to present functioning models of partnerships in detail, while there seem to be more viable basis for cooperation in Vietnam or India, for example.

Out of this, the WGA in Asia currently has the following goals:
< Networking and mutual support for those who already have a certain background or wealth of experience in spiritually founded business management, with an openness to include partners from other parts of the world.
< Sharing success stories of existing business and collaboration, as well as information for interested parties and the general public. It will probably also be necessary to work through anthroposophical concept formation and the basics of financial and economic theories.
< Questions of financing the work and support for start-ups or joint projects.

The public events can be viewed via these links:

Invitation to the Zoom Event with Chinese translation.
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