Internal Controls Committee

Luzern

Blanca Steinmann is actively involved with the Internal Controls Committee of fepa and leads the Reading Mentorship project for the city of Lucerne, supporting around 80 children. She began her career as a primary school teacher, spending ten years teaching in the canton of Lucerne and at the Ecole d’Humanité in Hasliberg. While studying communication and social anthropology at the University of Zurich, she traveled to Namibia and South Africa, where she developed an interest in the development of southern Africa. After graduating, she worked at Heks in Zurich on youth projects in Asia and a small reconstruction program in Mozambique following the 2000 cyclone. She then spent eleven years with Fastenopfer in Lucerne, working on a savings group program in Madagascar. In her free time, she enjoys meeting friends, family, or her book club, hiking, swimming in the lake, and practicing Eastern European folk dances.

Biel

Herbert has been part of fepa since 2018 and serves on the Internal Controls Committee. An economist by training, he brings extensive experience in international cooperation. Before retiring, he spent 30 years working for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and, prior to that, for the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique. He coordinated Swiss development programs across three continents (Mozambique, South Africa, Macedonia, and Cuba) and remains convinced that he couldn’t have chosen a more exciting career path. In his free time, he stubbornly pursues learning Arabic, sings in a classical choir, organizes public philosophical discussions with friends, and indulges his passions for reading and cooking.