About Us

A world in which we all treat each other with respect and appreciation. A peaceful world where communities have learned to resolve conflicts constructively. A world in which children are strong and develop in a self-determined manner. In which they have opportunities and rights and can exercise them. Children should be able to acquire knowledge and skills and make their own experiences - we support them in this worldwide.

Our foundation are the values of our founders Walter Robert Corti, Elisabeth Rotten and Marie Meienhofer: respect, justice, tolerance and openness. According to the credo of our namesake Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, we rely on the equally weighted education of head, heart and hand. We act on the basis of human and children's rights and support the right to self-determined development. Sustainability and local anchoring are the focus of all our projects.

We reached 227,361 children and young people in 2022 with our projects. Such as Komsan in the picture. Ten-year-old Komsan can switch off from everyday school life by playing football. But the rest of his life is anything but child's play. Read more about this in our 2022 annual report.

Our goal is achieved when we are no longer needed. That may sound strange, but it is true. When implementing our projects, we rely on cooperation with the local people. Because only projects supported by the local community have a long-term effect. This is also how we implement our impact targets in the projects. This is also thanks to the support of our cooperation partners.

More than 100 employees put their heart and soul into helping children and young people at the Pestalozzi Children's Village. Why does someone work for us? The employees can tell you this themselves.

We are there for you in our visitor center at the following times: Monday to Friday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please note our special opening hours on public holidays on the website of our visitor center.