The Pestalozzi Children’s and Adolescent’s Village („Das Pestalozzi Kinder- und Jugenddorf") offers a home to children and adolescents from socially deprived backgrounds. The young people live in family groups consisting of six children. They are looked after by ‘house parents’ who fulfill the role of parents and support the young people to recover from past traumatic experiences in a safe family environment. By experiencing reliability, respect and appreciation the children are enabled to form secure relationships once more, which facilitates bonding. The family groups are at the heart of the service we provide.
Our facilities include a special needs school as well as twelve craft and land-based workshops and businesses that offer apprenticeships to young people. This vocational program includes carpentry, painting and varnishing, a retail outlet, a kitchen as well as training schemes in the area of home economics. Apprenticeship programs are also available at the bakery and at the farm, where fruit and vegetable production as well as husbandry are based on the principles of biodynamic farming and agriculture. The job training programs are supported by vocational schooling courses.
The Pestalozzi Children’s Village is a community that offers young people a nurturing environment that stimulates growth and development. The young people receive individually tailored support and a holistic education from kindergarten level to senior school level and vocational training. We promote a holistic education of “head, heart and hand." The people who work and live here strive, with heartfelt dedication, to offer the children a worthwhile future.
The charitable organisation ‘Pestalozzi Children’s and Adolescent’s Village Wahlwies e.V.’ is the patron of this particular kind of orphanage. Our Children's Village was the first of its kind in Germany. The charity was founded in 1947 in order to offer a home to orphans and fugitives after the Second World War. Today the Pestalozzi Children's Village offers a modern welfare service for young people. It has been supported in its creation by many generous donors and still relies on financial support and charitable donations.
The Pestalozzi Children’s Village is located in Stockach-Wahlwies, close to the German border to Switzerland and four kilometers away from the Lake of Constance. Nestled in a landscape of hills, streams, vegetable and fruit plantations, the village is a place of peace and security. The immediate environment offers numerous possibilities for play and adventure as well as an open infrastructure, which includes a wholefood shop, bio-dynamic agriculture and farm, a doctor’s surgery and physiotherapy practice as well as rooms and sports facilities available for hire to clubs, cultural initiatives, groups and individuals. We want to live in harmony with nature and have implemented environmentally friendly practices throughout the whole village. We aim to instill an understanding of and appreciation for nature in the children and adolescents in our care.

The Pestalozzi Children’s Village is a community that offers young people a nurturing environment that stimulates growth and development. The young people receive individually tailored support and a holistic education from kindergarten level to senior school level and vocational training. We promote a holistic education of “head, heart and hand." The people who work and live here strive, with heartfelt dedication, to offer the children a worthwhile future.
The charitable organisation ‘Pestalozzi Children’s and Adolescent’s Village Wahlwies e.V.’ is the patron of this particular kind of orphanage. Our Children's Village was the first of its kind in Germany. The charity was founded in 1947 in order to offer a home to orphans and fugitives after the Second World War. Today the Pestalozzi Children's Village offers a modern welfare service for young people. It has been supported in its creation by many generous donors and still relies on financial support and charitable donations.
