“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”
Our Mission
We improve the English skills of kids in the communities we support, while imparting them essential knowledge and values that can contribute to the sustainable development of their community. By providing them with inspiration and a broader perspective, we strive to open them a path to a better future.
Our Vision
Our ambition is to make a lasting impact on our partner communities by providing generations of children with English skills and inspiration using continually improved teaching methods.
Our Impact in Numbers
We aim to provide the best possible help to our pupils and thus privilege the quality of our teaching over the number of pupils we reach. We take pride in making the most of the means at our disposal.
400+
Children reached in 2023
40
Volunteers sent in 2023
93%
Of our budget devoted to onsite project expenses
Our Impact in Stories
Our carefully selected student volunteers travel to the country and work directly with the children to improve their English skills, triggering an exchange of cultures and values. The volunteers ultimately also transmit essential knowledge which they have as committed HSG students, and support the children in becoming capable leaders in their societies.
Project Thailand
„During our time in Nong Chang, we had the feeling that we learned more from the children than we were able to teach them. We are infinitely grateful for this incredible experience and the memories that we will carry forever.“ - Volunteer, Winter 2024
Project Zambia
"What impressed me the most was the will to learn. The children are very eager to learn and motivated to participate in class, they collaborate and even ask for more homework" [...] "The four of us [volunteers] got pretty emotional when the whole school thanked us with a song at the end of our stay." - Volunteer, Winter 2023
Insights from volunteers - Brazil
Volunteer, winter 2022
“My conclusion about this trip: Discovering a new culture, teaching teenagers, taking care of toddlers, observing the all-day life in a favela and traveling around Brazil with volunteers that you didn’t know before but turn out to be very good friends are all must-do experiences"
Volunteer, summer 2022
"The moments of exchange are sincere, diverse, and heartwarming. The goodbyes were not easy. Even though we do not have much in common with the children from the favela, it is incredible how we easily established friendships
with them. I realized that some feelings do not need a shared language to be fully lived."
Volunteer, winter 2023
"If I had to describe Arco [, the school,] in one word, I would use "magical". I forgot my sense of time here and enjoyed every moment with the children, the staff, the caregivers and the other helpers. Every single smile and hug after a couple of hours spent together is immortalised in my mind. These are the little moments that I will carry in my heart forever"
Our
Story
The Past and the Present
PIECES was founded in 2009 by students of the University of St. Gallen within the SIM Master’s program. As part of its curriculum, the SIM (Strategy and International Management) requires students to get involved in a social project. This is how a first group of three students went to Isla Ometepe in Nicaragua to teach as volunteers for the very first time. The experience was a huge success so the team decided to keep it going and turned this one-time project into an organisation, PIECES, that would continue to engage students in such initiatives. Since then, PIECES has greatly evolved and is currently organised with a board counting the heads of departments, active members, and an advisory board including the founding members and others, for them to guide and support the organisation at the university.