My professional path
After having worked in different fields relevant to community empowerment over the past 25 years, I started as freelance (DerEntwickler.ch) in community empowerment and development this spring in Switzerland and abroad.
I have engaged in adult education since 1988 on various topics e.g. ecocide law, intercultural and interpersonal communications, critical thinking and human rights.
In 2011 I moved to the environmental field. I started as director of the campaign department for agriculture, forests, oceans and environmental toxins at Greenpeace Switzerland. After one year I changed to work on corporate accountability (e.g. The Public Eye Awards). In that time I studied applied ethics in the master class at the University of Zurich and trained with Ways to Quality, an anthroposophically based and internationally accredited quality management tool.
Prior to that I set up and run a community interpreting service as managing director for several years, on behalf of the city of Zurich and various aid agencies. Furthermore, I was in charge of the training programme for community interpreters in the canton of Zürich. As member of the managing board of the national umbrella organisation for community interpreting, I helped establish the only state recognised certificate for community interpreting. During that time I completed my training in organisational development and was guest lecturer in intercultural communications at the University of Applied Sciences of north-western Switzerland.
Mandated by a national foundation I set up and run a Swiss-wide project for the promotion of healthy crises management and peaceful conflict resolution with children and young adults. In 2005 I completed my Master’s degree in social work (focus on intercultural work and conflict management) at the University of Applied Sciences Alice Salomon in Berlin.
Around the turn of the century I headed as co-founder the International Forum for Accessible Science (IFAS) – a critical, international educational and human rights organization in the field of AIDS and medicine based in Bern and London. In addition, I worked as a communications consultant with a Geneva based PR and consulting network.
After completing my studies in social work I worked as a clinical social worker on acute and rehabilitation units at the University Psychiatric Services in Bern. In 1999, I studied international human rights instruments at the International Institute of Human Rights René Cassin in Strasbourg, France and trained in emergency psychology and debriefing with police forces in Essen, Germany and completed my NLP practitioner training.
Whilst studying social work I also trained in biography work. Part of my studies in social work I completed at the University of East London, working with victims of crime. After having met the late Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the late 80s of the last century, I completed her training in the early 90s.
In the AIDS-crisis I trained as a hospital chaplain (CPE) at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). Focus of my work with patients and their relatives on the in and out-patient AIDS wards, hospital emergency rooms and the hospital prison were care for the dying, crisis intervention, suicide prevention, sexual counselling and working with male victims of sexual abuse. In addition, I was an intern in occupational therapy programme with cancer and AIDS-patients at Mount Zion Hospital also in San Francisco, followed by an internship in art therapy again at SFGH, on the unit for children and young people suffering different kinds of trauma. It was in that time that I started working with the late Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
A long time ago (and far away) I started out professionally by training in business adminstration (vocational education).
Since 2011 I am a member of the Anthroposophical Society, and since 2013 a member of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. This year I was elected on the board of Neustart Schweiz a national organisation to transform neighbourhoods, communes and regions.