Committee City Programme

The members of the Committee City Programme are also members of the steering group of the Compassionate City Bern, called «Bärn treit». These are Claudia Zürcher, Claudia Michel, Michael Kirschner, Pascal Mösli, Annette Berger. More information will follow soon.

Annette Berger

Annette Berger, coach, therapist, author, has been running her own practice in the fields of body and talk therapy for thirty years in Bern. The interaction between body, soul and spirit as an expression of vitality is particularly important to her. She specialized in supporting people after traumatic experiences and serious losses. She views grief primarily as a healthy human ability and advocates for more social recognition of mourning.
Her aim is to accompany grieving people in their very personal process of finding their way into a new life. Annette Berger has been active in "Bärn treit" (the Compassionate City Bern) since the beginning and offers besides coaching, meditation, and shiatsu also public courses on the subject of communication at the end of life.

Michael Kirschner

Michael Kirschner is a sociologist working for the City of Berne as head of the section for the ageing people. Before, he worked for several years for the national association Curaviva Switzerland in the old age department - the research and development centre for the sector of care homes in Switzerland.

Claudia Michel

Claudia Michel, born in 1971, holds a doctorate in social geography. She taught and researched in the field of sustainable development at the University of Bern and has been a lecturer at the Institute of Ageing at the Bern University of Applied Sciences since 2014. She teaches interprofessional project work, researchers social support in the last phase of life and develops tools for working with the elderly in communal social spaces together with practice partners. She enjoys experimenting with forms of knowledge transfer between research and practice. In the past, she has written policy briefs, produced an exhibition and a film.

Pascal Mösli

Pascal Mösli is a theologian and supervisor. He has worked as a chaplain in various healthcare institutions and was also a radio journalist and co-founder of a chain of day care centres for children. He currently works for the Reformed Church of Bern-Jura-Solothurn, as freelance lecturer in healthcare and he is a member of the Spiritual Care research team at the University of Zurich. He is interested in social developments in spirituality and the impact it has on people's quality of life and dying.

Claudia Zürcher-Künzi

Claudia Zürcher-Künzi is the managing director of palliative bern, the cantonal section of the national association for palliative care. Before, she managed a four-star superior hotel for 12 years and was responsible for the funding of the city theater Bern (Bühnen Bern) during 9 years. She is loooking forward to building bridges between professionals and the population of Berne and specifically to launch the festival activities that will take place in the city during the conference week – together with fellow campaigners of the Compassionate City Bern “Bärn treit”.