Teach For Austria (TFA) facilitates educational opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged kids in Austria by building a movement of top graduates who become inspiring teachers and leading actors for a social change– so-called “Fellows”. Their vision is that in 2050, all children have the chance to live a good life; no matter how much income or which educational backgrounds their parents have.

The Shine Brighter Challenge

Since 2014, the Swarovski Foundation has supported Teach For Austria and has a seat in its Board, represented by Marisa Schiestl-Swarovski. Our support started with recruitment, placement, training and mentoring of 5 fellows per year. In 2019, we began supporting two further initiatives: The Shine Brighter Challenge and educating Swarovski Waterschool stewards. The Shine Brighter Challenge is a design competition that was set-up to foster children’s creativity, where children develop creative environmental projects around the topic “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, whilst using upcycled Swarovski crystals.

Teach For Austria Fellows

Fellows are high potential individuals with different academic tracks that become inspiring teachers who teach in the most disadvantaged classrooms in Austria. One Fellow alone reaches up to 100 children from underprivileged backgrounds. They focus on the potential of the kids, enable them to believe in themselves and in their dreams, to ensure all children can live up to their full potential.

Not only do Fellows have a direct impact in classrooms, they also strengthen and improve existing efforts within low-income schools to increase educational opportunities of Teach For Austria´s target group. In the long run, Fellows become leading personalities in their fields and continue to support Teach For Austria in closing the achievement gap.

Every sixth (15.5%) Austrian 18-24 years-old is an 'early school leaver'. This amounts to over 110,000 young people vulnerable to unemployment, poor health and a life of limited opportunities.

Teach For Austria

Teach For Austria was founded in August 2011 by Walter Emberger; one year later the first Fellows started teaching in classrooms. Now, Teach For Austria is present in three out of nine Federal States (Vienna, Upper and Lower Austria) and in October 2019, 12 Fellows started for the first time in Kindergarten. Since the beginning, over 66,000 children have been reached and thus many lives and educational pathways have been influenced.