Our people

After growing up in Italy, studying law in German-speaking Switzerland and spending time in the United Kingdom, I decided to be a lawyer in Geneva. I am involved in all kinds of cases, and appear before the national and arbitration courts. I often look after creditors and debtors in difficulty.

Outside the business world, it seemed natural for me to make a modest contribution to the humanitarian sector. I wanted to share my knowlege and time with those who needed it most, showing my solidarity with them. This is why I have made my services available to the Tdh foundation for the past 15 years. I am honoured to have presided the foundation's Council for the past several years.

For many years I directly witnessed what words like protect, reassure, care, ease, soothe and aid meant to children in difficult and sometimes appalling situations. Tdh’s presence at turning points in these young people’s lives is a key factor in them being able to build trust in a fragile existence.

This trust is an essential step in building or rebuilding a decent life and social awareness. This process requires a lot of heart, commitment and courage, but also methods, professionalism and wide coverage to directly benefit children, their parents and their entourages.

My life has been shaped by the knowledge I have gained of others through traveling (ARTOU), working in humanitarian management and finance (SDC and Swiss Solidarity) and managing media organisations (radio stations and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation), as well as my role as a father and grandfather. This has given me the distance, faith and trust necessary to believe in the meaning, knowledge, knowhow and actions of my colleagues at Tdh.

As the former President of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Lausanne Federal Institute of Technology or EPFL), I think it is important to support non-governmental organisations that improve daily life for other human beings on this planet. However, it is as a qualified doctor and citizen that I sit on the Council. It is in this capacity that Tdh’s two main areas of expertise, child health and child protection, concern me.

When students finish their studies and begin their careers, I tell them to “dare”. That also means “dare to change the world.” Because I believe that each person has the ability to change things for the better. This is another reason I support Tdh’s activities.

Defending the most vulnerable children is about dignity and action. This is why Tdh exists. We put all our strength and knowledge towards ensuring that these children obtain better living conditions and respect for their rights on a long-term basis.

I am honoured to be part of the Executive Board. Its priorities and values correspond with my own. I am a social worker, trade unionist and Member of Parliament. I was the State Councillor for Public Instruction, Culture and Sport in the Geneva Canton between 2003 and 2013. I am currently the Chairman of the Pro Helvetia foundation and a lecturer at Geneva’s Haute École de travail social (graduate school of social work).

I work alongside Tdh's professionals and volunteers to protect children and support the application of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This helps me further my commitments. It is a duty, a desire and a privilege!

As a doctor, I have worked with Tdh since 2003, when I joined Tdh Neuchâtel's volunteer group committee. Over the past 11 years I have held different positions, including the position of president, which I left in May 2014. During this period, I organised and participated in many fundraising activities, which I used to raise awareness of the children's issues defended by Tdh.

I have travelled to visit projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Each site visit was an opportunity to share what I had learned back in Switzerland and to maintain motivation. In November 2013, I was honoured to be elected to the Tdh Lausanne Council and, in April 2014, to Tdh Valais. A few months later, I joined the foundation's Executive Board.

These roles allow me to support the cause of children, to put my long experience working with volunteers to good use, and to orient projects based on site visits and my awareness as a doctor.

Terre des hommes initiatives are all about geopolitics. Committing to the largest Swiss NGO for child welfare is an obvious choice for a father of three. At Tdh we react in a practical way to what’s happening in the world, and our core concern is children. Deploying projects in health, education, legal defence, that type of applied geopolitics impresses me. What are we doing in Iraq, in South Sudan, in Dadaab? How should one behave in a dictatorship? It’s hard to be more concrete than that. As a former presenter of “Géopolitis”, I’m particularly interested in projects linked to humanitarian crises.

Four different paths led me to Tdh and its many areas of activity. When I was a teenager, I had a Tdh “sister” – an Algerian girl who had travelled to Switzerland to be operated for scoliosis and lived for a year with our family.

Then, as a young paediatric doctor on the wards at the Children’s Hospital in Geneva, I looked after children that Tdh had sent to Switzerland for heart surgery.

Later on, I worked with the Groupe de Protection de l’Enfant (child protection group), dealing with the issues of child abuse, negligence and the rights of children at home and abroad.

Lastly, I ran a consultation for teenagers in Geneva, which led to my interest in juvenile justice. 

Since the start of my career, I have put time aside for volunteer activities that served the public interest. For 25 years, I chaired my canton’s largest non-profit organisation supporting disabled people, before becoming a member of the Federal Council. After leaving the Federal Council, I accepted Tdh’s offer to preside the foundation’s Council. I admire Tdh for the quality of its commitments, its professionalism, and its rigorous management of the funds it receives. With Tdh, the fate of the weakest of the weak – children – is in good hands.

After studying law and graduating with an MBA from IMD, I worked for 35 years in different industrial organisations in the USA and Switzerland. I held management positions in marketing, sales, services and communications.

In 2008, I created a foundation to help one of India’s most underprivileged groups, the Adivasis. We currently support over 1,500 women and children through different education, health and micro-economic programmes.

I am interested in Tdh because of its pioneering work with disadvantaged (or troubled) children, teenagers and their parents in emerging countries.

I want to give a voice to children around the world. This is what motivates me as a lawyer, and what led me to become involved in Tdh’s activities. These activities foster, protect and care for life in its early stages, so today’s children become tomorrow’s emancipated citizens. As a mediator, I see the commitment of my colleagues at Tdh as evidence that humans are capable of including and opening themselves to others.

I joined the Tdh Council in 2006 as a member of the audit committee. I wanted to experience life inside a humanitarian organisation by making my financial and accounting knowledge available to the Council. In 2008, I joined the Executive Board in order to play a greater role in the organisation’s management. I am now in regular contact with the financial department and auditors.

During these years, delegation visits have allowed me to witness the high standard and importance of our colleagues’ work in the field, often in extreme and dangerous situations. I have been impressed by their unfailing motivation and commitment to supporting destitute children and their families. This has in turn given me even more reason to invest in Tdh.

I am currently the director of a company that specialises in management training. I have spent most of my career working in communications (written, spoken and visual). This has allowed me to meet many people who have strengthened my humanist view of the world.

What happens on this planet concerns me. For this reason, I refuse to give up in the face of selfishness, cynicism, indifference, intolerance and violence, which I have all too often witnessed in different countries and different fields. I have long contributed to causes that work towards politically “libertarian”, social or humanitarian goals. The focus of these causes has often been the weak, fragile, destitute and defenceless. I feel I have a duty to put my modest abilities and my energy to good use for children here and abroad – they are our future.

My commitment to Tdh was a natural step – I had already worked with the foundation for 20 years, caring for children with heart problems sent by the foundation to Switzerland, and helping my team at Vaud University Hospital to operate on children in Senegal.

But Tdh is much more than this. It is involved in many mutual aid initiatives. Some are long-term activities, for example those in the educational field. Others are one-off, such as programmes for destitute populations suffering in the aftermath of natural disasters. 

I now know Tdh well. It is like a family of people who are enthusiastic, committed to a rare cause and able to pull off the most impressive exploits. The invitation to join the organisation in 2013 was an exceptional honour for me.

In Switzerland and around the world, children are vulnerable and at risk of abuse. They must be protected as much as possible. This is the main reason I chose to specialise in paediatric medicine. In addition to working at Lausanne University Hospital, since 1983 I have also taken part in many emergency humanitarian operations run by the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SDC-FDFA) in response to major disasters. When I retired in 2008, I wanted to continue my humanitarian activities supporting children in developing countries. For this reason, I offered my services to Tdh. I joined the medical group and, as a health resource person, I take part in many overseas missions. I have also actively participated in the development of nutritional programmes and activities in the fields of emergencies and humanitarian crises. 

As a former judge for minors, I evaluated several of Tdh’s juvenile justice projects and programmes. Later, when I became a member of the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child, I realised how much impact the organisation had in the field. Generally it operated in very vulnerable countries where humanitarian aid, protection activities and support for children were characterised by difficulties in accessing sites and politico-administrative hurdles. Despite this, Tdh was a benchmark – and sometimes the last NGO still operating.

I have a deep respect for the work this organisation has performed for such a long time. I also have a deep respect for the people who work there, who seek to create a better existence for thousands of children, to include children in decision-making processes and to support these children’s families.

It was not a difficult decision to become one of the people who contribute their time and skills to the foundation’s Executive Board, playing their part in this joint effort.