Left: Promoting environmental awareness: A group of children from the ‘Clean & Green’ schools in Myanmar. Photo: © Pestalozzi Children's Foundation/Remo Schläpfer. Top right: Breaking down prejudices: Each year, over 3,000 children and adolescents from Switzerland and different European countries get together in the children’s village in Trogen. Photo: © Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation/ Christian Possa. Bottom right: Enabling international encounters: Each year, around 150 adolescents from different European countries exchange ideas at the European Youth Forum Trogen. Photo: © Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation/Michael Ulmann TEXT: NANE STEINHOFF
Education for justice and tolerance In August 1944, Walter Robert Corti called for the building of a children’s village in Trogen in DU magazine. His vision: “Let’s build a world in which children can live”. Today, the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation is an international children’s charity which makes regular school attendance possible for children and which has fostered tolerance, as well as mutual understanding, since 1946. Back then, Walter Robert Corti’s call to action was a huge success. After laying the foundation stone in April 1946, the first European war orphans moved into the children’s village in late summer – and the rest is history. Today, the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation dedicates itself to children in Switzerland and in 12 other countries worldwide. As children’s rights are a key component of the foundation’s daily work and their projects are orientated towards the Conventions on the Rights of the Child, 2019 will be a big year for Pestalozzi – after all, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child will turn 30 this year.“We want children and adolescents to have access to holistic education so that they can contribute to a fairer and more peaceful world. That’s why the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation carries out education and exchange projects in Switzerland and throughout 30 | Issue 70 | January 2019
the world, while fostering intercultural communication,” explains Elisabeth Reisp, Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation’s head of communications. Concretely, this means that over 3,000 children and adolescents from Switzerland and other European countries meet in different project formats throughout the year to break down prejudices. The goal of these encounters is to strengthen intercultural competences and solidarity. A highlight is powerup radio, which gives children and adolescents the platform to make their voices heard and to share what they learned during their time in the Children’s Village. Furthermore, two radio buses visit schools all over Switzerland. Internationally, the foundation has been active in 12 countries in Central America, East Africa, Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia since 1982. According to
the Child’s Rights Convention and the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030, the foundation enables access to education relevant and suitable for children. Working alongside local project partners, national ministries of education and the responsible school authorities, curricula, teaching methods and teaching materials are developed, teachers are trained, and parents, as well as the community, are integrated into the projects. Education paves the way to a selfdetermined and economically safe future for children – that is why the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation stands up for access to high-quality, relevant and needsbased education for children worldwide. “Each franc that gets invested in education creates multiple values. With this, we reach around 140,000 children, teachers and parents year after year,” Reisp concludes. The Pestalozzi Children's Foundation receives 80 per cent of its funding through donations. That is why the foundation counts on the support of numerous donors to realise their education projects in Switzerland and throughout the world.