Lausanne Program Director Mary Mayenfisch is bringing sustainability and a humanitarian perspective to the Switzerland program. In her visit to Malibu last week, she shared her plans for a partnership with Terre des Hommes, a nonprofit organization that operates in Switzerland and in 30 other countries.
The organization has been around since 1960 and is the largest NGO that works with children in Switzerland.
“Last year students sold oranges in the town of Lausanne [to raise funds],” Mayenfisch said about 
the first project with Terre des Hommes. “This year we wanted to do something that was much more all encompassing in relation to this group. We have a project in which we are going to work with Terre des Hommes and the work that they do medically.”
This project, called Journey to Life, is a program that brings children with medical needs to Switzerland from different countries around the world. While in Switzerland, the children undergo necessary treatment, and then they are returned to their homes in their native countries.
“What really impressed me most about the project was how the families have such faith in an organization like Terre des Hommes that they allow their children to be taken away, taken into a foreign country, and hope that they come home,” Mayenfisch said about the nonprofit.
Mayenfisch and the Lausanne house were introduced to the project through a film called “Journey to Life.” The film depicts the process of volunteers picking up children that are in the program at the airport and then taking them to the hospital they need to go. The volunteers follow the journey of the children until their recovery and departure for their native country.
“Our students are going to go to the airport to bring a child to the hospital in Nyon and follow the trip of that child, hopefully to recovery,” Mayenfisch explained.
Besides the Journey to Life project, the Lausanne students 
will also be involved in the annual orange sale hosted by Terre des Hommes in the center of Lausanne. The oranges are sold at two francs each and all of the money goes to Terre des Hommes projects.
The third project the Lausanne house is working on involves a store that Terre des Hommes has in the center of Lausanne.
“The store works with volunteers and they sale second-hand clothes to help people in Lausanne that aren’t doing very well,” Mayenfisch said.
Partnership with Terre des Hommes is only one of the recent initiatives Mayenfisch has pioneered.
“On our campus we set up a Green Team last year, and we’re trying to explain to students how sustainability comes in three different parts. It’s called the triple bottom line, how to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable,” Mayenfisch said.
Mayenfisch was trained in law, but her passion for international involvement and corporate social responsibility sprang up during her time in post-graduate study.
“I had a professor when I was doing my post grad in the ’90s and he made a statement that made me wonder, because as a lawyer I had never thought about this. He told me that corporations had become bigger than countries,” she said. “Which kind of made me nervous because I suddenly realized as a lawyer that there is international law that applies to countries but there is no law at the international level that applies to corporations.”
In her work with Pepperdine students in Lausanne, she has encouraged them to find ways to contribute through their work and through volunteer opportunities. Lausanne students have spent time volunteering with refugee children and the elderly. Mayenfisch also makes it a priority to secure summer internships with companies that focus on sustainability and responsible business practices.
“Pepperdine is already doing so much in that perspective with all their service projects. It has to do with how you look after your own people,” Mayenfisch concluded.
Mayenfisch has been working with Pepperdine in August 2006. In January of 2007 the Lausanne house open its doors to Malibu campus students.
