Last Sunday saw the annual Worldfest held at Frankfurt International School in Oberursel.

This year the food from the 16 participating countries ranged from Coronation Chicken (Great Britain) to Kashk va bademjan (Iran) and from Kangaroo kebabs (Australia) to Falafel (Israel).

I also discovered a new drink to try: Mango Lassi from India – a mixture of mango purée and yoghurt.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the presentation of the Mark E. Ulfers Leadership Award to Astrid Kastening. (more…)

Last Sunday saw a flurry of activity in the woods between the northern end of Oberursel and nearby Oberstedten.  Several hundred children and parents from the local Waldorf school were holding a sponsored walk to raise money for a school  in South Africa.

Although the school itself borders on the area, the start was actually located some distance away in the woods itself – signs led those like myself who had gone to the school instead from the gates along a trail to get there.

Once at the check-in point, the walk itself took a circuit that was about 1 km long, with the walkers being sponsored on a per-lap basis.  Over 300 people were expected to take part.

The sponsorship money raised will be put to use in a project at the Dassenberg Waldorf School in South Africa who have had a partnership with the school in Oberursel for the past 15 years. (more…)

A joint announcement was made at the Rathaus in Oberursel yesterday, and you could tell how important it was by of the number of people present.  Representatives of 5 political parties, the school, the town, local residents, and even the mayor got together to announce a compromise had been reached on the location for the new FIS sports hall.

The project started two years ago when Frankfurt International School (FIS) in Oberursel held a competition to design a new sports hall.  The winning entry would have probably been the easiest to build, as it was outside the current campus and would have been located diagonally opposite the main entrance at the Waldlust, next to the Hans-Rother-Steg.

Except that this location had its opponents.  For a start there were the local residents in that road who already have to contend with the traffic that the school generates.  They collected over 900 signatures against the plan.

But there were also a number of groups who were opposed to the forest being cut down to make space for the building.

This particular area of forest is called a Schutzwald, ie. a forest that enjoys a certain level of protection because it performs a specific function, such as preventing landslides or for water management.

And so it was, that in the past months all of these groups, along with the parties from the town’s parliament, have sat down at a so-called “round table” to discuss the options available.

A number of options were on the table, and the school evaluated each of them on criteria such as security for the campus, accessibility, but also for their environmental impact and whether they could also reduce the daily traffic load that the roads around the school have cope with. (more…)