Wikipedia
The Sterntalerhof was established in 1999, as a necessity born of sheer need. A children's hospice in the original sense of that term, namely a place where the whole family can find peace and tank up on strength to find their way back into everyday life.
Deacon Peter Kai and Psychotherapist Regina Heimhilcher, founder of the Sterntalerhof, bought a small farm in Burgenland, Austria, with their own savings and began work in 1999 as an independent nonprofit charity association. The vision was to support every family which is in psychosocial exception on grounds of a life-threatening and life-limiting Illness of their children. The organization should be taken to mean as a harborage (original meaning of hospice), a place for recovery where hope can grow anew.
Peter Kai and Regina Heimhilcher together developed these pillars:
- Holistic guidance of families with children who are seriously, chronically, or terminally ill
- in a dignified and natural atmosphere
- by an inter-disciplinary team emphasizing "horse therapy"
The hospice is taking care of more than a hundred children with their families per year on a stationary basis, in helping these families cope with their everyday home life via our mobile supply system and its over 100 network partners, in setting up 2 to 3 summer weeks for siblings, in providing ambulant guidance for about 20 children per week, and in supporting a group of 5 orphaned families several times a year on the basis of a specially developed plan. Sterntalerhof has thus proven for many years that by taking advantage of all sorts of synergy effects efficient and effective work is indeed possible - and that exclusively with privately obtained resources.