Homeless
- Sunday, January 12, 2025
- With Lukas Bärfuss, Esther Mühlethaler, Adriana Ruzek
In the richest country in the world, poverty affects almost one in ten people: 700,000 people, including 99,000 children, do not have enough money to lead a decent life. The biggest financial burden is owning their own home. And more and more people living in poverty are unable to find affordable accommodation. They end up on the street. The weakest are hit the hardest: people without Swiss nationality, without residence status, without education. When you lose your home, you lose your personal shelter, your privacy, your civic existence and ultimately your dignity. Author Lukas Bärfuss, himself affected by homelessness in his youth, talks to two proven experts: Esther Mühlethaler researches poverty and works as a street worker in Biel. Adriana Ruzek is co-director of the Basel association ‹Schwarzer Peter› and also a street worker.
Lawless and enslaved in Switzerland
- Sunday, February 23, 2025, 11:00 a.m.
- With Lukas Bärfuss, Ursula Biondi, Yves Demuth
In addition to the Verdingkindern and the genocidal ‹Kinder der Landstrasse› project against the Travellers and Yenish, the Swiss system of repression also included the administratively supplied and forced laborers. To this day, these people do not fit into the image of an honest, capable Switzerland, and they are still fighting for recognition of the injustice that was done to them. At the age of seventeen, Ursula Biondi was administratively cared for in the Hindelbank women's prison because she was pregnant and underage. She never committed a crime. Her fight for justice brought to light a dark chapter in Swiss history: the fate of people who were locked away for years without being sentenced in prisons, psychiatric clinics and church homes. Yves Demuth is a journalist. In his book ‹Zwangsarbeiterinnen› (Beobachter Verlag, 2023), he sheds light for the first time on a system that enslaved people in Switzerland. Until the 1980s, young women were brought into factories against their will on what was called the «right path».
Debts
- Sunday, March 23, 2025, 11:00 a.m.
- With Lukas Bärfuss, Inés Mateos and Pascal Pfister
Debt affects many people - but not all in the same way. In Switzerland, one in six people live in a household with overdue bills, often associated with social disadvantage. The unemployed, single parents and people with a migration background are particularly affected. Financial hardship leads to social exclusion, while a lack of diversity and inclusion in education and the world of work exacerbate the problem. Yet the economy needs people to take out loans. How can this cycle be broken? Inés Mateos' commitment to diversity and social justice is shaped by her own biography as the child of a working-class family with a migrant background. Today, she works as an independent expert, consultant and facilitator at the interface of science, practice and society to strengthen diversity as a social resource. Pascal Pfister has headed the Swiss Debt Counseling Association since 2021. With his experience as a trade unionist and communications expert, he is committed to raising the visibility and political anchoring of the topic.