My journey in the field of integral development started in the spring of 2019, while attending Alexander Schieffer’s course at the University of St. Gallen. During the course “International Development: Future-oriented Integrated Development Work in Theory and Practice”  I came to understand the importance of a holistic and integral approach to development, education and virtually to any other field as well. At the same time, I experienced a call to follow this path further and to engage myself in this co-creative mission of transforming the world.

My passion for development itself, especially with regards to education, has been around a little longer than the course and started in my early teenage years. The passion became manifested during a field trip in Thailand and Laos for my Matura paper. In the paper, I described and analyzed the approaches and values of the organization “Child’s Dream”, which is dedicated to improving health and education for sustainable development in the area. It was there where I knew that I want to engage myself permanently with development work. In order to do so effectively, I had to understand and learn about the mechanisms of the economic, legal and political spheres in the world, which is why I enrolled at the University of St.Gallen to study International Affairs.

My call to achieve a change in the current education system became aggravated not only during the International Development course but also by the following exchange semester in Canada. There, the divide between “Western” and indigenous ways of doing and knowing is very present and distinct, and served as a great reminder that there is not just one way of approaching education. Moreover, the stay in Canada showed me that many potential solutions to current local and global problems are already embedded in the rich knowledge and activities of indigenous people. Thus, I strongly believe that we have to listen and to learn from each other, and then manifest the mutually gained awareness in co-creative, collaborative actions, in order to achieve change – and to achieve unity!