What are the typical mistakes we make when trying to help others?

We are excited to share the entire recording and additional resources of this talk by Christine Staïesse at the Swiss Service Design Day 2024.

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About the talk

During this talk Christine Staïesse shared a case study on building services with the Roma who live from begging in Lausanne, Switzerland.


During her talk, she shared her hard-learned lessons from building community and social services.


We are especially excited about this a talk because Christine isn’t your typical Service Designer. In fact she isn’t one! She is a pastor, teacher and community builder. She comes from the « getting shit done » side of the service world instead from the mapping and sticky note world. And that is something refreshing to see in a Service Design conference!


About Christine

Today, Christine Staïesse co-leads the work of the Salvation Army in Hungary as an associate Regional Officer. In her career Christine has lead many community and social work initiatives for the Salvation Army in Switzerland and the United States.



About the Swiss Service Design Day

This talk was part of the Swiss Service Design Day 2024. A one day hybrid conference that happened on June first 2024 and hosted by the HES-SO Valais Wallis.


This was a relaxed but insightful day that felt more like a family reunion than a fancy conference with lots of buzzwords but no practical learning.

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Get the deck

You can view the slides of the presentation here


Summaries by communities members

Some lovely community members who attended the talk shared on LinkedIn what resonated with them from this talk. Here's what they said:

Mustafa T.
Mustafa T. -

“Christine highlighted the significance of working within a network, as every stakeholder contributes something valuable. Together, we can make a meaningful impact, even if it may never feel like enough. She also noted that frustration often accompanies satisfaction, and it's okay to experience both. I appreciated her genuine reflections on the mistakes and learnings from the project.”

Nils Solanki
Nils Solanki -

“Christine Staïesse of the Swiss Salvation Army told the moving story of how she first met outcast Roma people in Lausanne and spent time getting to know their community and being at service to meet their basic human needs. I especially liked her courage to share all the well-meaning mistakes she made when trying to help others and her personal lessons gained so far – including why giving money to people in need can be very counter-productive.”

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