Since 1994, there has been a network of 16 schools from ten European nations (CZ, D, F, GB, I, LV, LIT, PL, S, BOS) in St. Marienthal, which not only work on individual topics with a European connection in their classrooms, but which have made the “House of Europe” itself their classroom.

The goal of the European Network St. Marienthal is to convey the ideal of a united Europe to young people by creating a “European educational space on a small scale” and by promoting personal contacts, and to awaken in them the willingness to work on solving economic, political and ecological problems across borders.

Between 1994 and 1996, on the initiative of the St. Ursula-Schule (Hanover), teachers from the partner schools met annually in St. Marienthal to plan joint activities and developed ideas for future project-oriented European youth encounters. In 1997 two projects could be realized for the first time: a music workshop and a central meeting with participants from all partner schools of the network in St. Marienthal, which focused on the ecological-economic problems of energy production from brown coal in the border triangle Germany-Poland-Czech Republic. Since then, there have been two workshops a year, each of which brings together young people from at least six European countries.
Between 1994 and 1996, on the initiative of the St. Ursula-Schule (Hanover), teachers from the partner schools met annually in St. Marienthal to plan joint activities and developed ideas for future project-oriented European youth encounters. In 1997 two projects could be realized for the first time: a music workshop and a central meeting with participants from all partner schools of the network in St. Marienthal, which focused on the ecological-economic problems of energy production from brown coal in the border triangle Germany-Poland-Czech Republic. Since then, there have been two workshops a year, each of which brings together young people from at least six European countries.

The examples of these meetings make it visible that there is a willingness among young people from all parts of Europe to approach each other, to listen to each other and to cooperate with each other in an imaginative way, if they are given the opportunity to do so in the appropriate environment. It is of considerable importance for the objective of the workshops of the European Network St. Marienthal that what the participants have personally experienced at the international meetings is carried on and becomes fruitful also in other places. This is achieved above all by the attempt to reach a wider public after the meetings, e.g. through lectures in courses at the individual partner schools, through slide shows or the showing of video films produced during the meetings, or through exhibitions in parishes and through contacts with radio and the press.

The European Network St. Marienthal has developed over the years into a living organism, which promotes cooperation between individual schools in different ways: through contacts between teachers, through student exchange programs and also the possibility for individual young people to carry out professional internships in neighboring European countries through the mediation of the partner schools. Nevertheless, the international meetings in St. Marienthal remain the highlights of the network’s annual cycle and are, to a certain extent, the motor of innovative further development, since it is here that ideas and activities of the partner schools are concentrated in the “hotbed”.

The workshops of the European Network St. Marienthal have so far been financed by the EU, the Free State of Saxony, the Rotary Club Görlitz, the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the German Federal Foundation for the Environment.