Interesting that you should post today. I live in a tiny village in the Kanton of Schwyz. Most of the locals have never spoken to a black person and have only seen the ones hanging around the train stations or the few refugees the town had to house for a short time. Suffice to say, their image of blacks is rather negative.

Our local religion teacher came to visit us today and my daughter told him of her frustrations with her fellow students (secondary school) and their negative stereotyping of blacks. My brother-in-law is wonderfully black and as are my nieces and nephews, so my daughter has another view of non-whites than the locals.

The religion teacher is planning on inviting someone to class from Nigeria so the students can actually meet and talk to a coloured person.

I'm proud of my daughter and hope she can make a difference in our village. And I'm ashamed of all the stereotyping going on in our village.

I hope your experiences in Switzerland will all be positive, but if not, please think back to this post and remember that people are trying to shake up some of these ignorant Swiss.