Pioneers with a mission
Our vision is to reinvent education by unschooling ourselves and meeting our children from a place of trust instead of fear.
We guide children aged 8-11 years in their own learning process, focusing on their passions and personal interests while providing a basic framework.
Through the art of storytelling, (written, visual, digital, rhythmical, artistic, verbal) they will be encouraged to express themselves and to share their self-discovered wisdom with the world.
Task walks in nature, problem solving challenges, meditation, and breath work will be part of their daily structure. They will receive empowering tools that will help them to cultivate self love, critical thinking, and authenticity. Furthermore, they will practise compassionate communication, radical honesty, conflict resolution and do body & boundary work so they will be able to navigate resiliently and without fear through chaos, face challenges with grace, and transform shadows into light.
Family Focused
Including the families is fundamental to this community learning initiative.
There are monthly meetings in which we discuss organizational and logistical matters, plan fundraising events, brainstorm about content and discuss education and values.
The monthly women and men circles for the mothers and fathers (educators take also part) provide a space for more personal subjects to arise and for everyone to be witnessed in their process.
Contribution:
We work with a financial sliding scale hoping to support families with lower income. Monthly tuition is between €330-360 per child + at least 4 working hours per month. We follow a 10 month payment cycle.
In order to compensate for the immense amount of work that has been done by the families that have been there from the beginning we ask for an application fee of €300 from every new member.
LEARN, EXPLORE, AND CONNECT OUTSIDE
Educators & Experts
Anke
Academic EducationAnke is a qualified teacher and has been working for more than 10 years in several public schools. She specifically enjoyed working with children from different cultural backgrounds. Her big passion, besides education, is traveling. Adventurous as she is, she always found creative ways to combine those two passions. She’s been living and teaching in different schools all around the world.
Having seen so many different school systems evoke the strong wish to reinvent education. Her dream is to create a learning culture in which children can be fully themselves, learn with self motivation through their own experiences guided by enthusiastic passionate educators in an inspiring, stimulating environment.
With this project, her dream is finally coming true… For her, the cultivation of emotional intelligence and the inquiry of soft skills is equally important as learning how to read and write.
The children see her not only as an educator but also as a trusted friend that accompanies and guides them on their personal and academic path.
Silvia
Academic EducationSilvia’s mission is to support each child through a well grounded holistic educational approach in such a way that the child feels empowered to understand things by itself.
She is a certified AMI Montessori educator and has professional skills to observe and identify the inner needs of the children in their different development stages. For her, a safe and inspiring learning environment is crucial. She strongly believes that once a child feels truly seen and has the freedom to learn at its own pace, a child's intelligence can be fostered and nourished and the child will be able to unfold its true potential.
The kids love her sensitivity, her kindness, her patience and her sense of justice and integrity.
When she saw the peaceful learning space embedded by the wisdom and shelter of trees for the very first time, she had tears in her eyes and knew that this is the place where she can reinvent education and support children to become independent, sovereign humans.
Lisa
Portuguese LanguageLisa is a Portuguese-Canadian educator who grew up in the town of Lagos, studied journalism in Lisbon, and then returned to Toronto to complete her bachelors of education. For the past eight years she has worked as a primary teacher in Toronto, Thailand and Portugal.
Lisa believes that the teaching and learning process should be led by the child who in turn is guided by an educator who can take their talents and interests and lead them to their full potential.
When teaching languages, Lisa loves to incorporate visual arts, stories and music into her lessons. She believes in supporting kids in leaving their comfort zones so they can discover what they are truly capable of.
Katjalisa
Emotional EducationKatjalisa has a background in Anthropology, somatic sex education and is a certified Acro Yoga Family teacher.
Her vision is to create a new culture of relating by providing pioneering (sexual) education for children, teenagers and adults.
The weekly sharing circles as well as the work around bodies & boundaries that she facilitates are for most kids the highlight of the week. In a playful way she practices with them the art of active listening and models them how to communicate non-violently. She empowers the children to make their own decisions based on their intuition and to be vulnerable and authentic in front of a group.
Katjalisa also facilitates the monthly mother circle in which she picks up on the most important themes of the month that were visible in the sharings of the kids.
She is mentored by internationally recognised authorities such as Sanderijn van der Doef, a leading figure in the Netherlands and abroad in the field of sexual education and Franice Oomen, writer, illustrator, trauma expert and Inner Voice Dialogue Coach.
Mattie
Emotional & Ecological EducationMattie grew up on a biodynamic farm in the Netherlands and has a background in Anthropology. He is dedicated to restoring natural and human ecosystems.
Nature is his biggest source of inspiration. His mission is to empower the younger generation to work hand in hand with and to re-establish respect for nature.
Sharing his tools, insights and knowledge with children is the most hopeful thing he can do!
Together with Katjalisa, he holds space for the personal and emotional processes of the children and accompanies the boys on their journey into manhood. He always has an open ear and a compassionate heart for every child and has endless patience. His anger release techniques are popular amongst both boys and girls.
He facilitates the monthly father as well as other men's circles.
2022/2023
Admissions
Introduce yourself and we'll be in touch!
FAMILY TESTIMONIAL
"Restore Nature has been a truly transformational experience for us as a family. We joined the project following 3-4 years of conventional schooling with two children aged 7 and 9. We came with open minds, hearts and a wish for our children to be outside in nature following a multitude of home schooling lock downs in the Netherlands. Whilst the project was out of our comfort zone in terms of what we were used to, we were ready to broaden our perspective on education as we knew it.
What we experienced not only impacted our children in a very positive way but our whole family. We quickly realized that where we thought our children were doing “ok” they were actually lacking the soft skills which are so important yet so easily overlooked in conventional schooling. These were quickly highlighted soon after joining the project and we were supported with home activities to help improve things like boundaries and communication. We witnessed the biggest change in our daughter who was quite anxious when we arrived in Portugal but settled so quickly at the project. Within a matter of weeks we witnessed such a big shift in confidence, self expression and creativity. We were concerned about lack of communication when it came to our son but his ability to share more at home also greatly improved within weeks of joining the project. Thank you for this beautifully unique vision and project.
Katjalisa & Mattie... you have inspired me/my family in so many ways. I salute you for your vision, energy and courage in setting up this project. We love you both! The impact you have had on our children and us as a family has been huge. Through the topics raised at school (and sometimes triggers in us) we were able to question our own parenting and bring more openness, honesty and communication into our family. So many little things were highlighted and it really bought a lot to the surface that we realized needed work. Our time at the project has definitely been as healing for our children as it has for us as a whole family. I am so inspired by what happens here and the mothers circle was something that really touched my heart. I feel so grateful to have been a part and thank you all for your honesty, openness and feeling of support during these special evenings."
A GLIMPSE INTO DAILY LIFE
EVOLVING TOGETHER
Blog
COLLABORATIVE WORKSHOPS
Bodies & Boundaries for kids & parents
Are you interested in this one day workshop? Either for yourself and your family, for your own learning community or for your school class?
How will the day look:
We’ll start the day with a short sharing circle together with parents and children.
Then we’ll playfully explore through hands-on exercises our full body yes and our fully body no, work with our boundaries and learn healthy ways to communicate them.
After a shared lunch we will split up the groups. Through ‘stories as medicine’ both parents and kids can share in separate circles about their experiences.
Short closing circle with everyone.