Very special city tours

Every­one has to have vis­it­ed the three Swiss metrop­o­lis­es of Zurich, Bern and Basel at some point. There are many impres­sive sights to dis­cov­er – the Fraumün­ster in the heart of Zurich, the world-famous Zyt­gloggen Tow­er in Bern and the Tingue­ly Foun­tain in Basel. But far away from the plas­tered façades you will find pover­ty. Those affect­ed will show you what this looks like in Switzer­land on the city tours organ­ised by the Sur­prise asso­ci­a­tion.

Pover­ty-strick­en and home­less peo­ple have been organ­is­ing social city tours in the three cities for sev­er­al years. The tours focus on var­i­ous top­ics such as addic­tion, home­less­ness and sur­vival on the streets. The tour guides tell impres­sive sto­ries of how they man­age their dai­ly lives under the tough­est con­di­tions and let you see the cities from their own eyes.

We take a city tour of Zurich with Hans Peter

Numer­ous team mem­bers from our Mar­ket­ing and Book­ing Cen­ter decide to take part in one of the city tours in Zurich. No soon­er said than done! Hans Peter Meier is our guide. He greets us after work at Werd­platz in Zurich.

Fol­low­ing a brief wel­come, he tells us about his life in an unadorned way: He had a good job in the IT indus­try before the new econ­o­my bub­ble burst and Hans Peter lost his job as a result. His com­fort? The alco­hol that grad­u­al­ly becomes his undo­ing.

Next, Hans Peter, who has suc­cess­ful­ly over­come his addic­tion, explains which offices and sup­port cen­tres the city of Zurich offers for home­less peo­ple. «One major chal­lenge when you become home­less is get­ting to know the wide range of offers in the first place,» he reflects. There are a num­ber of sup­port cen­tres: Emer­gency accom­mo­da­tion and free cater­ing facil­i­ties. But you just have to be aware of them in the first place.

From the life of a homeless person

At the next stop at the Protes­tant St. Jakob Church, Hans Peter explains why home­less peo­ple spend the night in hid­den places, why they nev­er eat in the same place as they sleep or why they still pre­fer to spend weeks on the bal­cony despite hav­ing an apart­ment. Why is that? We’re not going to reveal the answers here – it’s best to ask Hans Peter him­self on a city tour.

Before we round off our expe­ri­ences at the region­al Sur­prise office with snacks and drinks, we make a brief stop at the Kan­zleis­chul­haus at Hel­ve­ti­aplatz. «In the par­tic­u­lar­ly cold win­ter of 2013, an emer­gency sleep­ing area was set up here for peo­ple who live on the streets,» explains Hans Peter. Oth­er­wise, the peo­ple would prob­a­bly have frozen to death. The cold months are par­tic­u­lar­ly hard. 

Surprise gives people a perspective

The non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion not only organ­is­es the inter­est­ing walk­ing tours. Finan­cial­ly dis­ad­van­taged peo­ple have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sell «Sur­prise» mag­a­zine on the streets to earn mon­ey. Hans Peter has been doing this for many years.

Café Sur­prise is a won­der­ful project across Switzer­land: Guests at par­tic­i­pat­ing restau­rants have the option of pay­ing for a sec­ond cof­fee, which a per­son in need can drink free of charge. This means that poor peo­ple are not only able to enjoy a hot drink in a cosy place, but can also take part in pub­lic life.

Anoth­er high­light is the Sur­prise street choir, which is pro­fes­sion­al­ly con­duct­ed. Pub­lic con­certs are held at dif­fer­ent venues through­out the year. Be sure to give them a lis­ten!