Present team

UNOY Peacebuilders is registered in the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, nr. 41235544 as a foundation, according to Dutch law and has the status of a charity institution. It is governed by an international board with resourceful representatives from various fields, representing various continents.

UNOY Patron

H.H. Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Honorary Chairs

Nikolai N. Firjubin

Rabby A. Soetendorp

Advisors

Prof. Dr. Alicia Cabezudo, Educating Cities, Argentina. Specialist in peace education.

Mark Cunningham, freelance professional in Public Relations working from Amsterdam and an advisor of UNOY.

Dr. Cecile Dolisan, Cameroon. Member of AWID and ASTRAW. Specialist on African women.

Marte Hellema, European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP).

Prof. Gerd Junne, professor in International Relations at the University of Amsterdam and Director of The Network University.

Drs. Paul Meerts, Deputy Director Institute of International Relations "Clingendael", The Hague.

Dr. Robert Muller, Former Chancellor UN Peace University, San Jose, Costa Rica.

Interns and staff

Cristiana Conte holds a BSc in Peace, Cooperation and Development Processes and she recently completed her MSc in Development Studies at the London School of Economics. She worked as an intern for the Department of Human Rights of the Italian Foreign Office, and she collaborated with an international NGO working on development cooperation based in Rome. Cristiana comes from Italy but she studied and lived in Spain, England and from March 2008 she is living in The Hague where she started working for UNOY Peacebuilders as Project and Network Coordinator.

Menno Ettema is the new international coordinator from November 2006. He was born in the Netherlands, but also lived in the UK, Israel and Palestine. He holds a Master degree in Psychology of Culture and Religion, initiated the association Con-Young-Tion, and organised several youth exchanges in the Netherlands and the Middle East.

Diana Gaidelyte studied International Relations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, USA. At the university she was involved in numerous educational projects concerned with promotion of knowledge related to international relations' field as well as peace issues. While at the university, Diana actively participated in organizational coordination of annual High School Leadership Conferences held in order to enhance students' understanding of conflict situations and advance the creative solutions. At the moment, Diana is interning at the UNOY Peacebuilders as the information desk officer.

Michiel van Ingen was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, but spent the last five and a half years living in London. He completed a B.A. Combined Honours (International Relations & Political Science) at the University of Westminster and the Msc. Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He worked as an intern at Medical Aid for Palestinians and spent a year and a half as a volunteer Country Coordinator (for Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea) at Amnesty International. He joined UNOY to be the African Desk Officer.

Diana Puentes is from Bogotá, Colombia. She studied Government and International Relations at the Universidad Externado in Colombia, where she participated in European Common Law, Analysis of International Policy, Post Conflict, and Human Rights seminars. Then, she completed the final year of this degree at Science Po in Bordeaux, France. Diana is the new Latin America Coordinator.

Silvia Silvozzi grew up in San Benedetto del Tronto, a small nice “Californian-style-village” by the Adriatic Sea. She got a degree in International Relations at the University of Bologna and then went to Paris, where she further studied in Economy and Law of the European Union at the University of Paris, La Sorbonne. She has some work experience with a couple of NGO’s active in Social Economy and International Youth Exchanges with Less Developed Countries. She’s now the European Network Officer at UNOY Peacebuilders and she is the editor of the newsletter.

Lillian Solheim started working as the advocacy coordinator at the UNOY Peacebuilders in October 2007. Lillian is from Norway but has been living the last 5 years in Brussels, where she completed her MA in International Relations and Peacebuilding. Her thesis focused on the role of Norway as a third party in the peace process in Sri Lanka. After her studies she volunteered for Search For Common Ground where she was involved in the gender programme. In 2005 worked at the Nordic Desk at the United Nations Regional Information Centre as an intern. She was also working as an election observer during the presidential election in Sri Lanka. Before moving to the Netherlands she worked as a community coordinator for an association management company while volunteering for a charity called Children are the Future.

Gemma Sou is from England, and is the new Advocacy Programme Officer and Asia Desk Officer. She spent three years travelling before completing a BA in International Relations and Politics at the University of Sheffield. During her degree she spent her second year studying at Virginia Tech University in the USA. She now plans on beginning a Masters in 'Poverty, Conflict and Reconstruction' before entering work in the non profit sector.

Volunteers

Inge Blom is a building engineer from The Netherlands. She is currently doing PhD research on the environmental sustainability of maintaining, using and living in houses at the OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology. She used to do some freelance webdesign and is now working on the UNOY website on a voluntary basis.

Bruno Cho Fon from Cameroon is a student of Communication Management specialising in Public Relations and Marketing Communications. He has been working for the AfroEuro Foundation as a media assistant and joined UNOY as an intern in July 2005. Bruno presently assists in consultations for the ASC 2006, also working on Marketing and Communication issues as well as fundraising plans for UNOY.

Eric Gbeassor comes from Togo, but lives in the Netherlands. He volunteers for UNOY occasionally.

Marthe Hesselman is from the Netherlands and finished her MA Humanitarian Action at the University of Groningen. She studied in the US as well as Germany and is now working on her second MA thesis in Political History at the University of Nijmegen. For her first MA, Marthe specialised in comparing Western and Arab-Islamic approaches towards conflict resolution. She did field work in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories. From February 2007 until April 2008 she was working as Projects and Communication Coordinator at UNOY Peacebuilders. Currently, she is volunteering for UNOY.

Liesbeth-Marije Hoogland is from the Netherlands and started as an intern at UNOY in April 2007. She was the African network officer in the summer of 2007 and she worked on the African Students Conference as well. In 2004 she graduated in International Relations at the University of Groningen. She holds an MA in Humanitarian Action. At the end of 2007 she was the chair of the interim board. She currently volunteers for UNOY.

Jessica van der Kamp comes from Hong Kong and is of Dutch/Canadian and Chinese origin. She holds a BA in Social Sciences with a specialization in International Law and International Relations. Jessica used to be a member of the Advocacy Team for the "Peace IT Together" campaign. Currently, she is volunteering for UNOY.

Saskia van der Kooy is from the Netherlands. She has completed her MA in Cultural Anthropology at the Utrecht University. Currently she is working on her second MA in International Relations and for her internship at UNOY in the summer of 2007 she has worked on Advocacy & Campaigning. She now occasionally volunteers for UNOY.

Ernest Mason studied journalism in Sierra Leone and worked as a radio producer, Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service during 1993 and 1998. In The Netherlands, Ernest did a six month diploma course in European Literature and Journalism. Over the years, he has worked at the Dutch broadcasting Evangelishche Omroep (EO), Vredesburo and Mira Media. He is currently volunteering for UNOY Peacebuilders.

Franny Parren is from the Netherlands. She completed a BA in History and an MA in International Development Studies. During her internship at UNOY she was involved with the Peace IT Together Campaign. She now assists with giving workshops and occasionally in doing voluntary activities.

Fabiola Rodriguez comes from Venezuela. She finished her Public accountancy degree at Carabobo University in Venezuela last year. She is currently living in Netherlands and working as a volunteer for the Latin American training project.