The idea of a waldorf project in this part of Bahia came up in 2000 and materialised in February of the following year, when a small group of parents and teachers founded the Associação Pedagógica Dendê da Serra and started to work on a farm 6 km away from Serra Grande village. For years there had been a little school on this farm, with a municipal teacher giving classes to children of four different grades. The Dendê da Serra project took over the existing students in a partnership with the local city authorities, trying to practice waldorf education under very poor conditions in the existing farm buildings. After two years at this place, the school finally moved to its new building, on a property of 2 ha in a beautiful natural area, which had been built with the support of several different sponsors and the decisive help of the Software AG Foundation (Germany).