Véronique Schoeffel

I grew up in Alsace, a bilingual region of France. My childhood in that region taught me to navigate between two languages and to develop from early on a multicultural identity. Thus, studying at the School for Translation and Interpretation at the University in Geneva seemed a natural next-step. The five years I spent in South Africa confronted me with the complexity of intercultural communication, and with the difficulty of understanding one another across cultures. I realized then that intercultural competence was a key to the sustainability of my work in international development. Back in Switzerland, I dedicated many years working with organisations active in the field of development, sensitizing them to the importance of intercultural competence in their work. In the past few years, my field of work has expanded beyond international development. It now also reaches the fields of health, education, religious bodies, administration, and corporations. I am deeply convinced that interreligious competence is not only a key to professional and economic success. It is, far more importantly, a contribution to peace in a world that needs it more than ever.