It has been 14 days filled with learning, cultural exchange, and fun.  We started our adventures on Monday, July 4th by meeting each other, taking a walking tour of Zurich, and enjoying a welcome dinner.  Since that time, we have visited a drop in center, met with the police, learned about asylum seekers, heard the […]

Today was another busy day of learning about social welfare agencies in Zurich. We started our journey bright and early at the Public Juvenile Prosecution Office in the Canton of St. Gallen. Here we learned about the Juvenile Court System in Switzerland through a presentation by Catherine. The Juvenile Criminal Law Act of Switzerland seeks […]

We started the day off at the community project of Pro Senectute, known as Rellsten-Zopf-Oberleimbach, where we learned about elderly integration and how they integrate with the community around them.  Ruedi and Soraja mentioned some of the opportunities they provide for the residents that participate in the program – knitting classes, language classes, gardening, etc.  […]

Today we had presentations and discussed about conceptions and reasons of poverty, about social welfare in the job market and about other services to the poor in the US and in Switzerland. In the afternoon we took a guided tour of the city with a man named Hanspeter, who works for an organization called Surprise. […]

We started the week by visiting the Social Services for the City of Zurich agency. After meeting Raphael Gägauf, a team leader and supervisor of the agency, we learned about the child welfare in Switzerland. The presentation covered the services that this agency provides for families in need. Some of these services include: mother and […]

Today we visited the drop-in center for individuals in Lucerne who get heroin as a necessary medical intervention to keep them from over dosing and dying.  In 1991, as a continued response to the drug problem occurring in public spaces, Switzerland added a 4th pillar, harm reduction, to their strategies for addressing drug use (the […]

In the morning our group visited the institution for social insurances (SVA), office of invalidity insurance (IV-Stelle). The institute provides assistance to persons who can no longer work due to disability either physical or mental health. The agency is in the first pillar of the three pillar concept. It was interesting that this agency provides […]

The AOZ (Fachorganisation in Migrations – und Intergratunsbereich) is a refugee transit center that opened in 1991 and can house up to 215 people. As of now the number of refugees that are housed is low (around 75 as of July 6th). Men, women, children, and families come here to gain better opportunities. The majority […]

One of the issues that we as American students found as really different was the fact that people can occupy a house that is not theirs. The government does not deprive them of things like water or electricity. Although this may seem to be inappropriate, it also provides us with a different perspective where the […]