Who we are
Student Initiative
As a Student Initiative, we are part of the Geneva Graduate Institute cosmos and therefore a part of GISA.
Our Passion
We’re passionate about creating an inclusive and engaging environment where students can develop language skills, celebrate cultural diversity, and build connections with peers from different backgrounds.
Our goal
Our goal is to foster language learning and cultural exchange among students. We believe that language education opens up professional opportunities, enhances cross-cultural understanding and promotes personal growth.
Our Board
Fabia Jenny
Co-Founder & Co-President
Fabia, a second-year MINT Student specializing in sustainable trade and finance is currently on exchange in China.
Her travels taught her that communicating with gestures works surprisingly well and that a smile is universal, but of course, language barriers have also led to funny and awkward situations. To her, it is clear that knowing the language enriches one’s experience in a foreign country. Additionally, when dreaming of working in an international context, being multilingual can only be a plus. This is why she loves language learning and it is also why the Language Initiative is a project that is so close to her heart.
Annick Peter
Co-Founder & Co-President
Annick is a second-year MINT student specializing in environment and sustainability, with a keen interest in peacebuilding topics.
Currently on exchange in Seoul, she’s doing what she loves most: exploring, learning about new cultures, and diving into language learning. Her experiences abroad have shown her how much doors open when you can communicate in the local language. Fluent in German, French, and English, and working to improve her Spanish, Chinese, and Korean, she understands the challenges—but also the rewards—of picking up new languages. This inspired her to co-found an initiative to make language learning at the institute as easy, social, and fun as possible, while also ensuring that financial barriers don’t stand in the way.
Leonie Wechsler
Co-President
Leonie Wechsler is a second year MINT Gender, Race & Diversity student and one of the co-presidents of the Language Initiative! She grew up bilingually speaking Swiss German & Dutch at home which has shaped her love for learning, discovering and speaking different languages. When she is not busy speaking or thinking about languages, you will find her running along the lake, cooking dinners with friends as well as strolling around the city discovering new places to eat, dance and have coffee in Geneva!
Rebecca Duewell
Co-Founder & Treasurer
Rebecca is a second-year student in the MINT program, specializing in Conflict, Peace, and Security. Growing up in a country with four national languages, multilingualism became a part of her upbringing and cultural identity.
In addition to her interest in languages, Rebecca likes working with numbers and data and views math and coding just as another form of language. Therefore, being the treasurer of the language initiative is a perfect match.
Naïra Goetschel
Language Class Coordinator
Naïra is a second-year MINT student specialising in Conflict, Peace, and Security. Having grown up in a multilingual household, and previous teaching experiences have shown her both the advantage of being able to converse in different languages and the constraints of communicating with people through language barriers – ranging from funny and absurd to annoying and conflictual. Having previously taught German, English and French classes, the Language Initiative is the ideal place to further along multilingualism.
Ranwa El Kikhia
Teacher Representative
As a second-year Master’s student in Conflict, Peace, and Security, and a Libyan-Jordanian, I’ve always loved learning new languages. However, speaking in a new language with confidence has always been a challenge. When I started learning French at the Institute, I was hesitant to practice with native speakers. That’s why I want to create a relaxed space for language learning, where you can pick up useful phrases and feel comfortable using them.
Jiaying Zhen
Head of Events
Jiaying Zheng is a second-year master’s student at the Graduate Institute specializing in MINT Environment and Sustainability. She is passionate about language learning and has been struggling to mastering French, Spanish, and Japanese for years. With a background as a trained English-Mandarin interpreter and translator during her undergraduate studies, she also has extensive experience teaching Mandarin and organizing cultural events. Feel free to reach out if you are also fan of this!
Catherine Lucas
Member of Events Team
Catherine is a first year Masters in International Law student who is looking forward to continuing to create a space in the institute for language and cultural exchange as part of the events team. Whilst sadly still quite far from being multilingual, she is very interested in languages and loves to learn the new and unique ways of expressing things that different languages allow.
Shuhei Sasayama
Member of Events Team
Shuhei Sasayama is a first year MINT student specializing in Sustainable Trade and Finance.
He is a pure language lover who has always been leaning a new language for the past 15 years. He also enjoys sharing his own culture — Japanese culture — be that may cuisine, music, or way of thinking. As a member of the event management team, he is hoping to provide space for fellow-language lovers and culture lovers.
Our History
The Language Initiative was born out of a desire to expand the language learning offer at the Graduate Institute. As first-year students, we were quite astonished to discover the range of affordable language courses at an institute, which promotes international cooperation, was so limited. And this even though language skills are key to a career in our field. The other options around Geneva being quite expensive, we were soon ready to take the initiative and organise them ourselves.
We wanted to try to offer our students the best immersive learning experience possible!
And here we are, trying to do just that, fostering intercultural exchange and fun memories by language learning.
Take a look at our website and discover our fun language exchange events, language cafes, and many more language learning resources recommended by native speakers themselves.
Talk to us
Email: gisa.languageintiative@graduateinstitute.ch
Instagram: the_language_initiative
LinkedIn: The Language Initiative
Geneva Graduate Institute
Maison de la Paix
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2
1202 Genève