“The integral approach leads to a world in unison, because the multiple perspectives of individual, organisations and societies are integrated to beneficially complement each other thereby unleashing unknown impacts.”
My personal development led me to realise that knowledge is a source of power. In order to use this kind of power to its potential and contribute to the goodness of humanity, knowledge creation must be a sustainable process towards empowerment of individuals, organisation and the world at large. Furthermore, collectivity and sharing of knowledge is crucial for long-lasting effective knowledge creation and empowerment.
With this background, studying international affairs at the University of St. Gallen, I was not fully satisfied with the knowledge acquired since I was only memorizing the obsolete subject matters. I felt a strong disconnection between the issues of our time and the teachings intended to solve those problems. Thus, for the final paper of my bachelor’s degree, I did not only want to write a paper for the bookshelf, but rather create a thesis that can be used.
Having been introduced to the integral development approach developed by Trans4m, in a very special university course by Alexander Schieffer, I was eager to apply and further develop the approach. Soon after the course, in 2015, I embarked on a journey of integral development, thereby also starting off Trans4m’s partnership with CORO India.
As a Junior Fellow of Trans4m, I spent three months with CORO in Mumbai, India. I thereby used my Bachelor Thesis entitled “CORO’s Integral Approach towards Collective Social Knowledge Building and Community Empowerment” as a transformative tool for organisational renewal, which allowed me to genuinely contribute to CORO’s continuing success and long-term sustainability.