MUZA’s Birth and Trajectory
MUZA – Creative Educational Solutions, an educational consulting firm, was created in 2002 in Geneva (Switzerland) by Geneviève. After spending a few years in Ottawa (Canada), she came to Montreal in 2007.
MUZA’s inception, during the early 2000s, resulted from a foundational professional experience at the International Bureau of Education (IBE/a UNESCO agency), under the direction of Cecilia Braslavsky, a famous Argentinian educator (1952-2005): http://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/ibe-staff/cecilia-braslavsky.
BRIDGE project : http://www.unesco.org/archives/multimedia/document-476 ; http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/Publications/Innovation/inno107f.pdf (pages 6 and 7).
First period. Until the end of 2005, MUZA offered educational services (project creation and development, educational aids, project evaluation) in Switzerland and in the international cooperation sector in Geneva, where many UN agencies have their European headquarters. She focused on mandates in the field of education for learning to better live together : social cohesion, cultural diversity, inclusive education and, environmental education. She collaborated with various partners: la fondation Éducation et Développement (Lausanne and Bern), la fondation Village d’enfants Pestalozzi (Trogen), UNICEF, UNDP, DDC-DEZA (Switzerland), GTZ (Germany), the Swiss Academy for Development, University of Geneva, cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel, Direction de l’instruction publique (Geneva), many different schools, professional schools and pre-schools, etc.
Second period. At the end of the year 2005, MUZA moved to Ottawa where she develops relationships with Canadian organizations, as well Ontario and French-Canadians groups, such as the Canadian Federation of Teachers, l’Association des enseignant.e.s franco-ontarien.nes, many school boards in Ontario and western Canada, Ontario ministry of Education, Health Canada, Parents Partners in Education, Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan), Winnipeg University, Université de St-Boniface (Manitoba), etc.
A mandate to create and coordinate program development for Kiuna, a First Nations College that opened in 2011 in Odanak, Québec, called Geneviève back to Montréal during the summer of 2007: https://kiuna-college.com/eng/. The Kiuna project was coordinated by the First Nations Education Council (FNEC, Québec), the Cégep de l’Abitibi-Téminscamingue and Dawson College, together with the Québec Ministry of Education. MUZA entered the third period of its life. From Montréal, it collaborated with many schools, colleges and universities, as well as non-profit organizations such as Oxfam-Québec, Canada World Youth, AQOCI and MGL Foundation.
Between 2014 and 2018, MUZA was not fully active, while Geneviève worked on her doctoral dissertation and participated in international collaborative research projects : Publications. These important years allowed Geneviève to merge all her professional experiences and competencies in the field of education and educator training into an integral vision centred on bodies.
In 2018 and 2019, during a year in Lausanne (Switzerland), MUZA entered its fourth period of existence, returning to its roots and connecting with colleagues from its original period: Events.
Back in Montréal, in Fall 2019, revitalized by Geneviève’s most recent experiences, MUZA was recreated in a new form, with an updated mission and logo. This website is a product of that renewal. MUZA now offers a few major new programs in educators training, facilitation and mentoring, based on a bodily anchored pedagogy and a refreshed collaborative method.
And life goes on …
