Ruth Zacharias

Ruth Zacharias (born August 12, 1940 in Mölschow ) is a German Protestant pastor and for many years head of the EKD's service for the deaf and blind in Radeberg and an author .

Live and act

Ruth Zacharias grew up on the island of Usedom in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She went blind at the age of ten and learned Braille at the school for the blind in Neukloster near Wismar. After graduating from high school in Königs Wusterhausen , she trained as a catechist and community teacher in Berlin-Weißensee from 1958 . After that she worked at the Evangelical blind printing plant in Wernigerode as a typesetter and proofreader , where in 1962 the first time a deafblind met. This was the impetus for her pastoral work and so in 1963 she set up a work for the deaf and blind. On Paulinum in Berlin, she studied from 1970 theology , at that time the only woman and only the blind. In 1973 she completed her vicariate in Dresden.

From 1974 she took over the management of the work among deaf-blind people in the GDR at the “Christian Blind Service”, in 1989 the deaf-blind service in the Villa Storchennest in Radeberg , which was inaugurated in 1993 after a four-year renovation period and which she held until 2015. There she founded a blind garden in 1996 around the villa “Storchennest”, which in 2002 achieved the status of a botanical blind garden . In May 2006 the "Ruth Zacharias Foundation for the deafblind community" was founded. In 2008, not far from the “stork's nest”, she had a house expanded into the first place of outpatient assisted living for the deaf-blind.

Zacharias organizes set-up times and services and travels across the country to visit deaf-blind people. Since 2013 she has been a member of the concept development team in the “Plants in Garden Therapy” section of the International Garden Therapy Society

Awards

• 2004: Awarded the Saxon Order of Merit .
• 2008: "Pastor of the Year" awarded by the Protestant news agency idea for her commitment to the deaf-blind.
• 2011: Honored with the Saxon Citizen Award .
• 2013: Awarded the Alma de l'Aigle Prize for Garden Culture.
• 2015: Honored with the "Life-Time-Award" from the world association Deafblind International (DBI) for her life's work, the promotion of deafblind people, presented by Stanislaw Tillich .

Publications

• To experience God's closeness. Deaf-blind people will be my companions , Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 1999.
• The fragrant garden - Botanischer Blindengarten Storchennest , Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg, 2nd revised and expanded edition, 2001.
• Fragrance is color, my world is also colorful (experiences and requirements for the design of gardens for the blind), Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 2004.
• with Andreas Niepel and Silke Emmrich: Garden and Therapy. Ways to accessibility , Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2005, ISBN 978-3-8001-4443-3 .
• From hand to hand - The work in the stork's nest , Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 2006.
• To testify to God's love - again and again the task in my life , Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 2010.
• The secret of grace. Five decades of service for deaf-blind people (on the occasion of the 70th birthday and 50th anniversary of service), Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 2012.
• God's power. The secret of weakness: My life for deaf-blind people , Winterwork, Borsdorf 2017, ISBN 978-3-96014-400-7 .
• Fragrance and color. Gardens become oases , Winterwork, Borsdorf 2019, ISBN 978-3-96014-576-9 .
• Camellia stories , Verlag Taubblindendienst, Radeberg 2019.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ruth Zacharias in the catalog of the German National Library
• Deaf blind service - website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Zacharias: Vita , taubblindendienst.de
2. ↑ Portrait: Pastor Ruth Zacharias, head of the deaf-blind service of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) ( Memento from April 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ The angel of the deaf- blind stops , saechsische.de, article from August 11, 2015.
4. ^ History of the deafblind service , taubblindendienst.de, accessed on August 19, 2019.
5. ^ Pastor in a world without light and sound , evangelisches-hoermagazin.de, issue 2/2007.
6. ↑ sections of IGGT , iggt.eu, accessed on August 19 of 2019.
7. ↑ Ruth Zacharias: Saxon Order of Merit
8. ↑ The head of the EKD Deafblind Service resigns , idea.de, notification from August 10, 2015.
9. ^ Sächsischer Bürgerpreis , notification of October 24, 2011.
10. ^ The presentation of the first "Alma de l'Aigle Prize" in 2013 , gartengesellschaft.de
11. ^ Award for life's work , sz-online.de, article from August 13, 2015.