Sylvie Hetu is the mother of three adult children, all of whom attended the Rudolf Steiner School in Montreal. His studies: Nutrition (Collège de Maisonneuve), Education (University of Montreal), Waldorf Pedagogy (Rudolf Steiner Institute in Quebec) and many other additional training. She is an international trainer and speaker specializing in education. Sylvie has worked with the International Baby Massage Association since 1983, teaching parents and training professionals from various backgrounds. She is co-founder of the school peer massage approach, with her colleague Mia Elmsäter from Sweden. Her work has taken her to several countries on five continents, including humanitarian projects with children with special needs from very vulnerable environments, among others in Asia and Africa. She is the authorof the book The Song of the Child (2004) currently being translated into French, co-author of Touch in Schools: a Revolutionary Strategy to Replace Bullying by Respect and to Reduce Violence (2010), author of On mort, and then after ? (2016). She published a chapter (The Myth of Early Stimulation for Babies) from the book Too Much too Soon (2011); she is co-author of the notebooks In the Beyond, the Suite... (2021), translated into English, and Sleep, this mystery (2023), published by the publishing house Ur Publications & Programs, which she co-founded. The golden thread of his various contributions is his enthusiasm for the development of human beings. His inexhaustible source of inspiration over the last forty years, and in all areas of his personal and professional life, is the science of the spirit, or anthroposophy, shared to the world by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925).
Michel Dongois is born in Champagne, France, chose Quebec, where he has lived since 1977, followed by his descendants and his grandchildren. Graduated from the Lille School of Journalism (1976). Journalist in the field of health professionals (especially doctors and pharmacists) for 30 years, and freelancer for various magazines, in Quebec and France. Recipient of several journalism awards. Beyond the turbulent waves of current events, he freely delved, over several decades, into the history of the White Rose. A story that is still being written, that of the German resistance movement to Nazism, around Hans and Sophie Scholl, Alexander Schmorell and their friends (Die weisse Rose). Meetings of parents and survivors, in Germany and the United States. Long-time hiker and passionate pilgrim of Compostela (1997), Mont Saint-Michel, the Chemin des Sanctuaires in Quebec, and a few others. Has carefully followed the establishment of so-called “cultural” routes in Europe, which preserve the memory of the heritage of peoples and which, often, have given rise to marked long-distance hiking trails. He is co-author of Get Up and Walk!, a spiritual notebook for the road. Pilgrimage internalized with anthroposophy, brought to the world by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Transforming the quest for information into the search for human wisdom - the meaning of the word anthroposophy - has been the driving force of his daily life for more than 40 years. Co-author of the notebooks In the Beyond, the Suite… (2021) and Sleep, This Mystery (2023), published by Ur Publications & Programs.
Mia Elmsäter was born and lives in Sweden. She is the mother of three children. After studying Physical Education (at the university level), she underwent training as a Montessori kindergarten teacher. She then managed her own alternative kindergarten for three years. In 1986, she became a certified Infant Massage Instructor through the IAIM (International Association of Infant Massage) and was a pioneer in this field in Sweden. She became an Instructor Trainer in 1990. Mia Elmsäter is also a member of the IAIM Educational Committee and has served on the IAIM boards internationally and in Sweden. In 1990, Mia, along with a colleague in Infant Massage, introduced the Infant Massage program in Romania. This visit was followed by the opening of the "Sunrise Day Care Center," the first center for integrating children with special needs in Romania. She has created and co-created several massage and nurturing touch programs, including "tactile stimulation" for children and adults with special needs, "Touch Therapy" used in medical centers, "Child Massage" implemented in kindergartens, and "Massage in Schools" for all school-aged children. Mia Elmsäter has volunteered in neonatal units in Sweden, supporting parents and helping them bond with their babies. She has also created support groups for parents of children born with Down syndrome. She has produced two films: one on infant massage and the other on massage for babies, children, and adults with special needs. She also gives lectures on nurturing touch to medical audiences. All her experiences, combined with those of her colleague Sylvie Hétu, led to the creation of the "Massage in Schools Programme," implemented in England in 1999. In 2006, they both co-authored the book "Touch in Schools."
Richard House MA (Oxon), Ph.D., C.Psychol. is a retired senior university lecturer (Education Studies [Early Childhood], Winchester Unoversity, 2012–14; and Psychology and Psychotherapy, Roehampton University, London, 2005–12). A chartered psychologist and former therapist, he edited the UK Humanistic Psychology journal Self & Society from 2013 to 2024, and is a founder-member of the Independent Practitioners Network and the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy. A trained Steiner Kindergarten and class teacher and an education campaigner, he has published 15 books on psychotherapy and education, including Too Much, Too Soon? – Early Learning and the Erosion of Childhood (editor, Hawthorn Press, 2011) and Therapy Beyond Modernity (Karnac, 2003). Richard was a founder-member of England’s Open EYE’ Campaign ( https://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com/ ), and Early Childhood Action, and for three decades has contributed regularly to a range of professional education publications, and to the peer-reviewed and professional psychotherapy literature. Richard organised the three Daily Telegraph Open Letters on modern childhood in 2006, 2007 (both with Sue Palmer) and in 2011. Today he regularly writes critical press and magazine articles on the covid ‘pandemic’, attacks on civil liberties and mass vaccination – including in New View magazine ( https://www.newview.org.uk/ ) and for The Light newspaper ( https://thelightpaper.co.uk/ ). Particular current interests include: Ivan Illich (1926-2002) and the capture of modern culture by biomedicine; the scientificity of mass vaccination; and the authoritarian nature of modern science and technological transhumanism. His latest book (with Thomas Hardtmuth MD), Beyond Mainstream Medicine, was published in 2022. He now actively campaigns for freedom and truth in Stroud, UK.
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