Living Together

Living Together

A space to engage, interact and connect across differences.

What we do

We facilitate relations in teams, groups, and public spaces to build connections, grow communities, and develop competencies in a highly polarized and divided world—to find ways to live & work together better.

🔖 Read our story behind.

📍 Join our Open Workshop & Music Lab on June 27, 2026, in Bern: “The Power of Silence.”

💡 Take a look at some of our past events in Bern, Geneva, and Biel/Bienne:

2026
🌿 April 2026, our first Open Workshop & Music Lab: “My life, my freedom, and my gifts in the world.” Read some of the insights here.

2025
🌿 May 2025 “Living Together: Yes? No? How?” open gathering at the Innovationsdorf Bern with 7Generations between Ukrainian refugees and local people in the community of entrepreneurs. Read our reflections here.
🌿 May 2025 “Integrating International and Local Students in School” facilitated discussion in collaboration with the Peacebuilding Initiative at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read our reflections here.
🌿 September 2025 “Creating Community in a New Place” facilitated discussion in collaboration with the Peacebuilding Initiative at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read our insights here.
🌿 October 2025, Building Intercultural Relationships interactive dialogue in collaboration with the Peacebuilding Initiative and GISA IHEID at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read our notes here.
🌿 November 2025, workshop on financial inclusion of entrepreneurs with the refugee and migrant backgrounds at the First National Conference on Asylum and Entrepreneurship by SINGA Switzerland.

How we do it

We use deep democracy paradigm, a scientific approach based on physics, psychology, and anthropology, developed by Arnold Mindell. This paradigm allows us to raise awareness of individual and group dynamics, the mainstream and marginal sides, and to notice and integrate missing information, thereby fostering more flow in processes that are stuck, for better communication and relationships in highly polarized settings.

In our facilitated events, we welcome diverse views and opinions and create a space that can accommodate complexities and contradictions. We believe that all voices, feelings, and positions have the right to exist, and we facilitate interaction between polarities to foster new understanding and perspectives.

There is a hope that through a facilitated conversation, there could be more awareness that can positively impact life, relationships, and collaboration between different sides, cultures, nationalities, backgrounds, and worldviews in a highly polarized society and workplaces.

Facilitators 
Magdalena Schatzmann, ProcessWork Dipl., musician, coach, and facilitator, https://kulturland.ch. She lives in the Swiss mountains near Bern. 

Yuliya Filippovska, PhD, ProcessWork Dipl, a co-leader of the Deep Democracy Institute Ukraine https://filippovska.com. Originally from Kyiv, she lives in Geneva.

Our friends and colleagues from the Deep Democracy Alliance, a network of professional international facilitators from around the world. 

Our partners

Together with our partners, we choose a particular theme. A facilitated event starts with 2-3 speakers, each sharing a story or life experience on this theme for 5 minutes. It offers a basic understanding of the different voices and polarities in the room. It is followed by a facilitated conversation among participants.

Such facilitated events are meant to create a space where diverse communities and viewpoints can interact and share views openly, including those beyond political correctness. Such a public space is used to create connections, friendships, action groups, and initiatives. In addition, government officials, NGO representatives, or other stakeholders in the topic can join our gathering to use insights from the discussion to shape their policies and initiatives. 

It is an alternative “United Nations” laboratory with unity as not given and static, but in flux and evolving as an ongoing process to work on together as a global community. If you are interested in participating, contributing as a participant or a speaker, and/or becoming a partner, please reach out to us.

What else we do

In addition to our research-based community-building project “Living Together”, we offer other services to support our fieldwork and worldwork, such as individual coaching, team facilitation, research, and training for teams, communities, and organizations. Namely, we offer individually and as a team:

* Community and group/team work
* Individual coaching for leaders
* Research for programming and policy-making
* Training in leadership, conflict resolution, and facilitation

Get involved

Support us

If what we do resonates with you, become a friend of the project and contribute to developing the “Living Together” movement.

Sign up for updates

Get invitations to our future facilitated gatherings, receive reflections, and follow our research.

Reach out to us

Get in touch with us to set up a 30-minute call so we can learn more about your situation and find out how we can be part of the solution.

Contact us

facilitated events coming soon

in Geneva and Bern, spring-summer 2026

  • Event. “Integrating International and Local Students in School”

    15 May 2025 | 17:00 – 19:00 | Geneva La Fabrique de la paix, Maison de la paix, Geneva Graduate Institute How can we foster connection and collaboration between international and local students in school? What would help us belong?… more ›

  • Event. “Living Together: Yes? No? How?”

    3 May 2025 | 14:00 – 16:00 | Bern Innovationsdorf Bern What are the joys and challenges of living together in times shaped by war, migration, and transformation? What makes it work? What makes it difficult? What are our differences,… more ›

  • Our next event is on May 15 at “The Fab”, Geneva Graduate Institute

    We are excited to share the news that on May 15 at 17:00-19:00 another facilitated discussion will take place in Geneva, with a theme “Integrating International and Local Students in School.” It is an honor to be organizing it in… more ›

  • Why this Project, or Some Beliefs Behind it

    In light of the two upcoming events— a facilitated open gathering on May 3, 2025 in Bern, at Innovationsdorf Bern, in collaboration with Innovationsdorf Bern and 7Generations; and a facilitated discussion on May 15, 2025 in Geneva, at the Geneva… more ›

  • First Open Gathering in Bern, May 3

    We are happy to announce that our first facilitated open gathering/public discussion will take place on May 3, 2025, 14:00-16:00, at Innovationsdorf Bern. It is a kick start of the project “Living Together in Times of War: Integration and Collaboration”,… more ›

  • Hello World!

    We invite you to watch the conversation in preparation to the open forum “Living Together: Yes? No? How?”, where we identify some viewpoints and respond to or interact with them to find moments of resolution. We call such moments “cool… more ›