Dear readers of the SwiBo-Newsletter!

As you know, the yearly Swiss-Bolivian-Partnership Newsletter was created with the intention of linking up all former, present and future project participants as well as all the other people who have been following and support this partnership. This year, we are inviting you for the last time to read about the project participants’ experiences and reflections and about our efforts to transfer our ideas and the spirit of this project into as many Swiss and Bolivian classrooms as possible in order to make them enduring.

Unfortunately however, our common endeavors are coming to an end with the beginning of the new year since the North-South-Partnership-Program, which has been providing the framework and funding for our project, will not be continued on a national level (éducation21 foundation).

For this reason, this last edition will also be dedicated to reminding our readers of the history and scope of this project which has been successfully running for 7 years.

However most importantly, we would like to thank all current and former staff members and all participating students of both institutions for their great investment and support in this unique project. It is our wish and hope that the exchanges between students and staff from both universities will have an effect which lasts beyond the official termination date of the project!

We will certainly keep our shared experiences in our minds and hearts and will miss the wonderful Bolivian visitors we enjoyed welcoming and hosting year after year. We therefore hope that we can keep in touch with at least a few of you!

All the best for all of you for both your personal and professional lives.

Christina Colberg and Gerit Jaritz
Lectures and leaders of the partnership at Thurgau University of Teacher Education

Looking back

During the seven years of our partnership many people contributed in different ways and gained many experiences on a professional as well as on a personal level. We are all grateful for all these opportunities.

It all started in October 2010 when former Director Prof. Dr. Ernst Preisig and Gerit Jaritz travelled to Bolivia to present their idea for a joint partnership project fostering education for sustainable development and intercultural exchange to the administration of Escuela Superior de Formación de Maestros Simón Bolivar. It was a short but successful visit and it was agreed that one would start implementing the project only 4 months later, in March 2011.

From then on, we have been running the project with 5-8 Swiss Bolivian student tandems per year. Each year, a group of Bolivian students - sometimes accompanied by ESFM SB staff - visited Kreuzlingen for two weeks in spring. The visit of the involved Swiss students - sometimes accompanied by PHTG staff - took place in October of the same year. These reciprocal study visits lay at the heart of the project and lecturers on both sides facilitated the necessary learning environments ensuring the visits went beyond a simple educational tourism experience.

Over the years, many goals were accomplished and within the framework of our partnership we were able to

• continuously strengthen our knowledge of Intercultural and Global Education in view of a sustainable development within the institutions and implement it into the curriculum.
• exchange and transfer knowledge on a pedagogical, cultural and linguistic level through the integration of new perspectives and personal experiences.
• provide opportunities to integrate the Bolivian Suma Qamaña (Living Well) and Sustainable Development principles starting from common educational activities.
• explore different ways of teaching, studying, living and thinking.
• enable students and in-service teachers to integrate issues of global interest and ESD into their future teaching settings.
• exchange and apply theoretical knowledge about the teaching of English as a foreign language and its current approaches and actively use the global language English as a means of communication.

Therefore, we were able to improve and strengthen the pedagogical practice of the participating staff and students and furthermore expanded their cultural horizons and understanding of the im-pacts of world-wide changes and interdependencies on education.

Christina Colberg
Lecturer and co-leader of the partnership at Thurgau University of Teacher Education

A unique project is coming to an end

At ESFM Simón Bolivar, the authorities and project leaders are very sad about the end of this project since it gave us an opportunity to share experiences with another university. This kind of agreement and cooperation was unique in Bolivia. We had the pleasure to interchange pedagogical experiences, and also our students are not going to forget the marvellous experiences. Another aspect is that in our school we are working with sustainable development.
Professors of different specialities are for example still writing about their experience  with the last Swiss student delegation. For me personally, it was an honor to share excellent moments with the Swiss students and also to practice my English. Meeting them encouraged me to investigate about Swiss culture and I really liked what I have read.

Maria Luisa Cusicanqui
Project Coordinator at Escuela Superior de Formación de Maestros Simón Bolivar

a) Impressions from Bolivia (by Swiss project participants 2018)

MY PERSONAL BOLIVIAN HIGHLIGHT – First of all, our whole journey to Bolivia was a highlight! One of the best experiences was the day at the countryside school in Chojasivi. The pupils where so kind and respectful and they were very motivated to learn, even if they didn’t understood English and we were not able to speak Spanish. They had a lot of upcycled material and the whole classroom was extremely inspirational. Instead of curtains they had old posters and to learn the numbers they had old CDs with colourful numbers on them. The school complex at Chojasivi consists of more than one building. Besides the classrooms they also have a solar tent to grow vegetables, a garden house where they plant roses and store dung and a building to learn how to process milk. I was impressed by their engagement and their creativity. During our travel-week one of my highlights was the sunset in the salt desert. Thanks to the clouds we saw an amazing play of colours. On one side the sun disappeared behind the mountains and on the other side there was the endless salt flat coloured in light blue and rose colour tones. When the sun was gone, it got freezing cold! Nevertheless, it was an unforgettable experience and a wonderful spectacle of nature.

Flurina Schiesser
Swiss project participant 2018

WHAT WE HAVE TAKEN WITH US FROM BOLIVIA – We took mainly in three parts experiences with us:
First the culture, which is quite different to ours. All the dances, music and traditions they have, and also use in carnivals, school or in the family. We were part of a few of these occasions and could feel, how it connects people. Another impression we got in Bolivia, was the landscape. The diversity it shows is fascinating, from the jungle over rare countryside to the salt-desert in the north. In fact, the people there, adapted their way of living to the landscape they live. The third part, where we took many experiences with us, was the teaching experiences in the schools there. We had the chance to see different types of schools and see how teachers shape the classes. Out of these teaching placements we can take a lot of ideas with us back to Switzerland. All in all, we had many great experiences in Bolivia and we took them as a memory back to Switzerland.

Simone Hess
Swiss project participant 2018

b) Impressions from Switzerland (by Bolivian project participants 2018)

CULTURE – I should say I discovered many things as I was going through the activities that were scheduled for my Bolivian classmates and me in Switzerland. One feature that really called my attention was the culture in Switzerland in contrast with the culture in Bolivia. I am aware that Bolivia has a rich and diverse culture but that isn't everything when you realize that Bolivia still has a lot to improve in terms of caring for the environment for example; this is why I asked myself if it is really important to have such a rich culture; let's be honest, Switzerland lacks in cultural movements but you can see, it must be one of the best places to live.

Elvis Huanca
Bolivian project participant 2018

THE HIGHLIGHTS OF MY STUDY VISIT TO SWITZERLAND - My study visit to Switzerland had such nice memories. One of them was that we as foreign students had the chance to participate in so many distinct classes and have a complete view of the PHTG. Besides, I could notice that the educative community is involved in practices of taking care our mother earth: separating waste, using bicycles and making class products with recycled material. It is remarkable that every class was so meaningful, the content, the activities, the teachers, the students. Although Switzerland is a more developed country, its people made me feel as if I were at home. On the other hand, sustainable development for Swiss people is closely related with «Suma Qamaña» or the Living Well. Although we are different countries our purposes of life go through the same direction: «to live a happy life».

Maria Rebeca Mamani Quispe
Bolivian project participant 2018

WHAT’S GOING TO STAY WITH ME – My visit to Switzerland made me grow up as a person. I learned that the project does not only involve education but also it respects the cultural features of the different partnerships. And about meeting our Swiss colleagues, it had a plus to me because I had the chance to live with them. It was nice to know their routines and to share information about our local institutions and be able to share ideas in common and distinct too. In general, what I learned from Swiss people were values: respect, reciprocity, responsibility, punctuality, tolerance and politeness. The same values are written on our Bolivian model of education, but they are doubtfully practiced in real life. About English classes I learned that a practical lesson plan works better to have a more dynamic and meaningful class. In brief, from all that I learned I am trying to apply within the context I have. Thanks for all the experiences Switzerland!

Maria Rebeca Mamani Quispe
Bolivian project participant 2018

School and Teacher Involvement

BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN CONTENT and LANGUAGE TEACHING - One of the highlights during the study visits of the Bolivian students used to be their short experience at either a Swiss upper primary or lower secondary school. While the lessons taught during the early stages of the project were mainly focussing on a presentation of an aspect of Bolivian culture, the focus of these lessons shifted more and more towards topics connected to the sustainable development of the world in the last years.

In 2018, the Bolivian students were asked to prepare two lessons related to climate change. A task which they initially found very challenging. However, once they realised that the way towards a successful and engaging lesson was through giving the students striking examples of climate change in their own country and then comparing them to what the students already know about the effects of climate change in Switzerland, they became very motivated.

The challenge of melting glaciers – known in both countries even though with varying degrees of immediate consequences- was identified as a good starting point. The Swiss pupils were very surprised to hear about the growing water shortage in La Paz where the melting water of the surrounding glaciers is an important source of water supply for many inhabitants. They furthermore discussed the immediate and potential effects of the same climate change phenomenon in Switzerland and demonstrated a good awareness of this problem. During the entire lesson, it was of course important to support the pupils with the necessary vocabulary in order to allow them to give their opinion and ask relevant questions in English. At the end, they were rewarded for their efforts with a song in Aymara and a traditional dance performance.

For the Bolivian students, it was their first experience delivering content in a foreign language (English) and for us, a confirmation that education for sustainable development topics lend themselves very well for being taught in a foreign language as long as one thoughtfully builds bridges between content and language when doing so.

Gerit Jaritz
Lecturer and co-leader of the partnership at Thurgau University of Teacher Education

TEACHING A LESSON ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN A SWISS SCHOOL - Teaching a lesson about melt-ing glaciers in a Swiss school was an experience I will not forget. First, we did not only teach English but we also compared both countries: Switzerland and Bolivia. It was interesting to know that alt-hough both countries are so far away from each other, they share the same problem. To talk about it with the students of a primary school made us know that they are aware of these climate change problems although they are very young. Second, what I enjoyed was the class environment, stu-dents were so polite, warm and participative. They were really curious about knowing more about Bolivia. I hope one day they would have the opportunity of coming to Bolivia and have great experi-ences as we had in Switzerland.

Maria Rebeca Mamani Quispe
Bolivian project participant 2018

TEACHING IN BOLIVIA – During our Exchange in Bolivia we had the possibility to teach different classes in Bolivia. As I’m studying Pre-Primary I had the chance to teach two different kindergarten classes. The two classes I was teaching were very different. The first one was in El Alto where it was very chaotic and the second one was on the countryside where the children were very interested and disciplined. It was fascinating to see how different classes can be.
The most difficult thing about this task was to teach in Spanish. No one of us speaks more than a few words in Spanish and so the difficulty was to create a lesson which works with little language. Luckily we had one of our tandems as a translator in our class in case of an emergency. I think that this was a great experience to learn how it feels as a foreign-language child. In future we will have children in our classes in Switzerland who don’t understand German and now I can develop a better understanding for their feelings.
To sum up I can say that it was a unique experience and I’m really happy that I could be part of it. I take a lot of good memories and experiences out of this project.

Lisa Hanhart
Swiss project participant 2018

Dear former project participants!

Please let us know how you are and what has become for you!
It would be lovely if we could collect as many e-mail addresses as possible from former project participants to be able to stay in touch. E-Mail us on newsletter@phtg.ch