Yasmin Abdi-Khalid and Blanca Bütler take the title for December’s Lion of the Month. These two hard-working and lovely women work endlessly to keep us safe and clean. Due to the pandemic, their workload has increased immensely and it’s important as a community to give them the recognition they deserve. 

Yasmin has been working at ZIS for 12 years, she has 3 children and 3 grandchildren. She’s originally from Djibouti and Somalia, where she says it’s too warm for her; she much rather prefers Switzerland’s cold winters. Blanca, on the other hand, says she loves living in Switzerland, but she has to wear lots of layers to protect herself from the cold. She’s originally from Paraguay and she lives here with her husband. 

These women ensure our ability to come to school and continue our routines. They’re essential to our school, and our safety, yet we don’t give them the recognition. Let’s make the effort to take some time out of our day-to-day activities to not only thank them for the hard work they do but also to hold ourselves accountable for ways in which we make their jobs more difficult. Use the sanitary bags in the bathroom. If you can’t aim, clean up after yourself, and don’t throw wet paper towels around. If you wanna do some sport, we have a gym for that.