COMMUNITY

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Our open and constantly growing community that co-shapes our ideas, approaches and learning formats is the heart of horizontal school.

Facilitators

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Our facilitators practice what they preach. They are practitioners in various fields such as civil society, organizational development and sustainability, coming from different cultural and geographical backgrounds. Their role is to empower, listen and convey competencies, as well as to share their own experiences, good practices and failures.

Sebastian Wehrsig

Sebastian is passionate about socio-ecological transformation, people and nature. He works on-site, outside and online as facilitator in education for sustainable development, international co-creation and citizenship education. Currently, he fosters sustainable development, climate actions and socio-ecological transformation at Villa Fohrde, an educational house in Brandenburg, Germany. Before that, he worked at MitOst, for the German Parliament and has a degree in nature conservation and regional development (MSc). Sebastian enjoys hiking and spending time with family and friends in Brandenburg, the Caucasus and the Alps.

Marta Gawinek - Dagargulia

Marta is a born cosmopolitan and lover of diversity, an educator and facilitator for 15 years now with very thorough experience in online facilitation. Her professional passions are lifelong learning, civic education and the development of key competencies for the working environments of tomorrow. She is an experienced project manager and team lead who has created spaces for empowering individuals and communities in Georgia, Central Europe and Germany.

tino rasche

Tino studied physics in Germany and Russia but today he is more passionate about values and critical thinking and how to show that they are very connected to nature, as proven by science. As a facilitator, he is creating educational spaces for diversity-conscious value-based cooperation of individuals, teams, and organizations. He is passionate about finding creative solutions by combining various spheres of life (philosophy, natural and social sciences, economics, education, health, language, music, technology, theater…) with an active personal attitude.

Alona karavai

Alona is the co-founder of the NGO Insha Osvita, social enterprises Khata-Maysternya and the Agency for Educational and Cultural Events INSHI, and a social investor at Urban Space 500. Alona has about 15 years of experience in program, project and product management in the field of non-formal education and culture. She is the co-author of several publications and handbooks on non-formal education. Alona is passionate about music, currently learning to play drums, and about contemporary art.

Astrid Thews

A systemic organizational developer, facilitator, evaluator and feminist, Astrid is particularly passionate about supporting individuals, teams and organizations in their learning journeys and discovering and fulfilling their purposes. In the past ten years she has worked on assignments and collaborations in arts or education in Egypt, Germany, Tunisia, Jordan, France. She is intrigued by spaces that emerge when people and organizations of different socioeconomic and sociocultural backgrounds get together, when practitioners and academics engage in encounters. In her spare time, she has been spotted hiking or on her yoga mat.

Ruslan Kildeev

Ruslan Kildeev is an edtech producer, sustainability geek, visual thinker, and digital magician. He accompanies teams and organizations in growing their digital capacities, developing virtual learning journeys, and hosting meaningful online gatherings. Since 2018, Ruslan has been working for MitOst e.V. In his job, he especially values the opportunity to work glocally, learning & experimenting mode, and cool people around. In his spare time, he takes pictures and solves mathematical puzzles. He also loves podcasting — both to listen to and produce own ones.

Farouk Bahri

Farouk is passionate about training engineering and strategic consulting. He is a facilitator and consultant in the field of crisis communication for multinationals and NGOs specialized in the field of social reconciliation around public or public-private partnership projects. While hosting workshops around non-formal education and intercultural approaches at the international level, he is locally a project manager and university researcher in educational sciences at the University of Tunis, engaged in the reform and the modernization of the Tunisian education system.

Matthias Haberl

Matthias enjoys working with complex and relevant topics such as conflict management, power, project management and moderation techniques and the challenges to set up a proper training regarding those issues. He has extensive experience in the field of facilitation and education. He is the co-author of a publication regarding online facilitation for the German Publishing House Waxmann Verlag, the co-creator of the Educational Programme “ENJOY” and the co-author of the Online Plattform “Competendo”, dealing with competency-based learning.

Linnéa Mühlenkamp

Linnéa is passionate about creating educational spaces for young people to become active in society. She is working as a freelance trainer and facilitator in non-formal education projects and programs, mostly in Germany and North Africa. Her topical expertise includes organisational development, community building and civic education. She is the co-founder of TraumWerkStadt e.V., a local association in Ruhr area implementing the program RuhrstadtTRÄUMER that supports young people to find their place in (civil) society. As a facilitator, Linnéa loves creating equal and safe spaces, always working process-oriented and towards positive social and organisational change.

Max Pijevski

Max is a trainer and facilitator in non-formal education, working with civil society organizations, individuals and groups in the Republic of Moldova and in Eastern Europe for more than 10 years. His passion is visual facilitation as well as contributing to raising sustainable and efficient teams, fruitful coexistence of people and discovering diversity between individuals and inside each of them.

Nataliya Trambovetska

Natalya is keen on asking questions and does it as a profession. She is a facilitator in non-formal civic education, and a trainer in organizational and personal development. She has been designing and conducting educational programs for more than 10 years, and supporting facilitators in their professional development as a supervisor. Natalya is the co-founder of the NGO “Insha Osvita” and the co-author of several manuals for facilitators. Over the last year Natalya has been actively working online, helping teams and organizations create an effective space for education and interaction.

Olalla González

With an educational background in Translation and Interpreting, Olalla has always loved languages and the possibility of facilitating a common understanding among people. She works as a full-time graphic recorder, integrating visuals in her work in educational activities aimed at youth and youth workers and collaborating in events organized by institutions from all over Europe related to educational, youth work and civil society fields. Olalla adores animals, is an active yoga enthusiast and cannot live a day without structuring information as either visuals or lists.

Nurana Mammadova

Nurana has been working as a facilitator, youth worker, mentor, and youth programs’ coordinator and supervisor for the last decade. She is part of various trainers’ pools across the globe and passionate about non-formal education and the art of facilitation, which paved her way to working with thousands of social actors from Europe, Africa and Asia. She has expertise in trainers’ and mentors’ education, project management and citizenship education and youth work. She is a member of the Eastern European Network for Citizenship Education. At the moment she is a national mentor of EU4Youth Alumni Network, Leading trainer of Policy Lab and member of the experts’ team of the 100 million Stars Initiative. Her academic background includes global economics, international relations and human rights.

SERGEI TERESHENKOV

Media and PR professional, author, trainer and facilitator, Sergei originally comes from St. Petersburg but used to live in Perm, Italy, and Poland. Being a trainer in the fields of non-formal education, project management, media and intercultural communications, he has been a member of the facilitators’ pools of the Theodor Heuss Kolleg and SALTO Youth, as well as a co-founder of ARTa – Association of Russian Trainers. Currently, he resides in Berlin and works as Communications Lead at the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, a network of NGOs from 19 EU member states, the United Kingdom and Russia.

NATAlya YEROMENKO

Nata is a Berlin-based facilitator, cultural manager and blogger. She was trained as a journalist and wrote for various Ukrainian and European media covering culture and society. During 2012-2016 she was active in the cultural scene of her hometown of Chernivtsi, building up a local community of culture activists. Since 2016 Nata has worked as a trainer and facilitator within Theodor Heuss Kolleg network in the fields of public history, critical thinking, personal resilience, communication and cultural management. She has conducted multiple ToT’s on the topics of community building, strategy development for NGOs and decision making. Nata is passionate about turning every event she moderates into a platform for a mutual understanding and true connection.

Teona Dalakishvili

Teona from Tbilisi, Georgia, has been facilitating and mentoring since 2010. She started her activities in civil society in 2009 in Georgia, enlarging her work to South Caucasus, Balkans, in the end covering around 40 countries through educational programs. Since 2015 Teona is specializing in the field of entrepreneurship, and has been teaching Innovations Management at Business and Technology University of Georgia as invited lecturer since 2017. She has developed various educational programs, supporting organizations in developing sustainable, responsible and mindful leadership, both in CSO and Private sector. Teona is also a leading expert in using mentoring for gender mainstreaming in Georgia and co-author of various workbooks and handbooks on personal development and management.

Roman Dyma

Roman Dyma is the Chief Operations Officer at Agency proto produkciia, a Global Shaper at Global Shapers Community by World Economic Forum and alumnus of AIESEC. Previously he worked on developing a community of small and medium enterprises owners and managing urban projects. His professional interests are business process management, organizational development, team management, community management, educational and cultural products’ execution, and volunteer management. Roman is also passionate about urban studies and urban development processes, conscious meditation practices and is practising parkour in his free time.

MONICA TRANCHYCH

Monica is passionate about creating spaces where people can explore and learn how to collaborate and how to build healthy and effective relationships that will lead to deeper strategic outcomes. She is currently based in Amsterdam, working in the Experience cluster of the European Cultural Foundation. Prior to that, Monica was a part of MitOst e.V., managing the Tandem Ukraine programme; hosting and developing events at Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg. Monica was always deeply involved, contributing and shaping the internal organizational processes in MitOst. Besides her managerial professional path, Monica is a facilitator, currently developing as a coach. Her professional interest evolves around organisational development, systemic thinking, systems theories and complexity. At the moment she is a part of the Basecamp at the London School of System Change.

Bětka Wójcik

Bětka’s background is in pedagogy and she has worked as an educator and facilitator since 2010. Her topical expertise includes dialogue and empathic communication (NVC), conflict transformation, youth empowerment, civic and non-formal education. She enjoys both online and offline facilitation and she is passionate about creating safe spaces for real exchange and learning together. Working with people and designing methods and trainings brings her often to the state of “flow”. At her community work, she supports and co-creates projects and complex programs which empower young people, changemakers and communities in Poland and Georgia. The dream about creating a world where everybody’s needs matter drives and motivates her to work. She feels at home in different places across the world and most of all she enjoys spending time with her children who are her biggest teachers of life.

ELYES GUERMEZI

Elyes is the Founder & Executive Director of the International Institute of Debate, a Tunisian NGO which aims to empower young people skills through education. He has travelled to different countries through the Arab regions, especially in conflict zones such as Yemen and Syrian camps in Jordan engaging young people to discuss their pressing issues for civic engagement, human rights and economic empowerment. His bold character in speaking for youth issues in Tunisia gave him a platform to panel and facilitate different national and international forums with focus on youth and women. He co-founded the Tunisian American Alumni Network and Tunisian Center for Social Entrepreneurship (TCSE). In April 2018, he was elected the 4th Ashoka Arab World fellow as a leader and director of the iiDebate organization, he was also selected as part of the Obama Foundation Leader program in 2019, and finally he is the chair of the advisory board of the organization Drabzeen Human Development in Jordan. Elyes is fluent in English, French & Arabic.

NAOMI MARTIN

Naomi enjoys the challenge of designing simple formats to address complex questions. Whether working in person, online or somewhere in between, she cares for the conditions that invite purposeful exchange, leading to fresh ways of thinking and acting collectively. Over ten years, she has gathered international experiences in the areas of sustainable urban development, integration and community development, having worked as a facilitator and project coordinator in various contexts across South America and Europe. With an MA in International Cultural Relations, Naomi also has professional training in coaching, participatory facilitation and systemic change.

STELIOS VOULGARIS

Stelios believes in the unexplored and usually implicit knowledge each person holds through their own unique experiences. He has been working as a facilitator of collective learning journeys for varied collectives – among which formal and informal civil society initiatives, local administration and local enterprises – throughout Europe.
The uppermost goal of his work is to support bringing to the surface this hidden individual knowledge and through participative and inclusive processes to support the enrichment of the collective intelligence of socially aware collectives.

LEI WANG

Lei has studied in China and Germany. She has long experience in academic, cultural and business exchange. Today, she feels at home in different cultures. Her transcultural experiences have helped her to change perspectives in order to gain valuable insights and broaden her own horizons. Lei enjoys this enrichment and encourages people to open up to diversity and create value from it. As an experienced facilitator, she is passionate about bringing people together and supporting diverse teams to sustainably improve their emotional, social and communication skills. She hosts workshops on intercultural approaches, and gives seminars on inclusion and sustainability at the University of Cologne. She is an author on education, culture and communication, and sustainable development.

CLAIRE SIVIER

Claire (she/her) is a Black-British social researcher, cultural producer, and facilitator with 15 years of experience working mainly with artists, young people and those from marginalised communities across borders and backgrounds. Claire is a guest lecturer at the University of Falmouth in diversity and inclusive practice (2020 – present) and is the co-director of There is an Alternative, research social enterprise exploring more human centered ways of evaluating the impact of arts and cultural programmes. As an artist, she is interested in the intersections of experiences, ecology, unlearning, and afrofuturism. Through her work as a facilitator and researcher, Claire works to co-create accessible spaces of transparency and care.

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horizontal school is hosted by commit gGmbH by MitOst which is a social enterprise, created in 2021 by the organization MitOst e.V.
commit embraces the complexity of our world in which interconnected challenges and rapid, constant change demands open-mindedness and curiosity. commit promotes and nurtures vibrant, flourishing, and resilient communities where everyone counts and where active citizens are valued as a stronghold for participative and inclusive societies.
MitOst e.V. is a Berlin-based non-profit association and a network fostering cultural exchange, active citizenship, social cohesion, and sustainable urban and rural development – beyond cultural, sectoral, or linguistic borders.

Partners

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