Alfred Decker’s passion in life has been ecological and social justice activism, of which permaculture has played a central part. Since his first Permaculture Design Course in 1998 in California, Alfred has been involved with social movements and projects throughout Europe and the Americas. He is an award-winning permaculture designer, a certified educator with the Permaculture Association Britain, and one of Europe’s leading permaculture educators. Alfred is the founder of the 12 Principles Permaculture Design consultancy, Permacultura Barcelona and the Forest Gardens project at Can Masdeu; is a co-founder of the Spanish Permaculture Academy (Academia de Permacultura Íbera); and was a member of the European Permaculture Teachers Partnership and the Permaculture Council of Europe.  Alfred holds a post graduate diploma in sustainable architecture and renewable energy (Centre for Alternative Technology).After taking a permaculture teachers training with Rosemary Morrow in 2011, he undertook a two year mentorship and later co-taught six courses with her, ultimately earning a Diploma in Permaculture Education & Community Development in 2013 through the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute (Australia). Committed to furthering the teachers’ training platform “Training Permaculture Teachers” (TPT) that Rosemary developed in over three decades of teaching experience around the world, Alfred co-edited her TPT manual and organised a successful crowdfunding campaign to develop the platform.In the coastal mountains of Montnegre, Catalunya, Alfred is the co-director of the community biochar project Montbio, which won a 2017 Lush Spring Prize for Social and Environmental Regeneration.

Ali Ravi is a strategy and security advisor, mentor, facilitator and trainer with 20 years of leadership and ICT experience focusing on the longterm security and sustainability of NGOs and human rights defenders. Ali co-authored the Holistic Security Manual and has facilitated important events within the community of support to HRDs including the Internet Freedom Festival, and is a mentor in Hivos’ Digital Integrity Fellowship.

Ever since stumbling across the concept of Transition Towns back in 2007, Ana Huertas has been committed to deep social transformation for the regeneration of our human and natural ecosystems. Ana is part of the coordinating team for the Spanish Transition Hub, where she provides help to local citizen-led initiatives trying to respond to the challenge of climate change and building community resilience. She has worked as an international cooperation technician for community development, sustainable agriculture and holistic education, and is also a trained Permaculture teacher and trainer for the Transition Movement. She has conducted research on climate change, urban and rural resilience, group dynamics and participatory tools for social change.

With extensive experience in systems thinking and process work for group facilitation (through El Camino del Élder, IIFACE), she understands that most of the alchemical transformation we need takes place within group dynamics. She has served as vice-president for the meta-network ECOLISE and is currently the coordinator of the Municipalities in Transition project. Ana currently lives near Barcelona and is involved in several local initiatives on ecology and sustainability.

Boaz Feldman is is a trained psychologist in trauma healing, cognitive-behavioural, psychosomatic and systemic therapeutic processes as well as a certified Mindfulness trainer from Bangor University. He regularly facilitates community-based bio-psychosocial capacity building trainings in humanitarian interventions both in conflict affected-regions (Afghanistan & Myanmar), natural disasters (Thailand) and development contexts (Mozambique). He is an engaged contemplative committed towards positive social, environmental and spiritual changes in the world, working in an interdisciplinary clinic in Geneva.  He provides Mindful Leadership classes for the Trinity College Dublin MBA programs and integrity trainings in Switzerland.

Byron has a background in health and social care, community adult education, counselling and leadership development; and has spent the past 25 years supporting individuals, teams, communities and organisations build inclusive practices, systems and cultures. During that time he has supported the equality, diversity and inclusion work in many small, medium and large organisations; engaging with front-in workers and senior leaders and teams. His passion is supporting individuals, teams and organisations weave together different sources of knowledge, wisdom and practice to support collaborative learning, address sensitive issues and building inclusive practices and cultures. His current work involves supporting people involved in equality, diversity and inclusion develop a compassionate approach in their work, including self-care, engaging with difficulties, and compassionate action.

Charlotte Millar es directora de Formación de la New Economy Organisers Network (NEON) además de cofundadora y estratega del Finance Innovation Lab. Sus campos de especialización son la estrategia, la construcción de organizaciones y el liderazgo. NEON es una red de personas que trabajan para conseguir una economía basada en la justicia social y económica. Sus objetivos principales son conectar a sus miembros, desarrollar el poder de estos a través de la formación y brindarles las narrativas y habilidades mediáticas para cambiar el debate. Dentro de esta red, Charlotte lidera la formación de los miembros de NEON para desarrollar las líderes, organizaciones y movimientos efectivos y sostenibles necesarios para el cambio a gran escala.El Finance Innovation Lab incuba las personas, las ideas y los movimientos que construyen un sistema financiero al servicio de las personas y del planeta. Charlotte codirigió el diseño de su programa de incubación para innovadores de las finanzas alternativas y se enfoca específicamente en desarrollar las habilidades de liderazgo participativo de sus participantes.Es también directora de Positive Money, que hace campaña para un sistema monetario justo, democrático y sostenible. Además, es consejera del Public Interest Research Centre, que desarrolla las narrativas y estrategias de comunicación que necesitan las activistas para efectuar un cambio cultural profundo.En su reducido tiempo libre (¡!), Charlotte encuentra formas de profundizar su conexión con el budismo, la naturaleza y las artes.

Conscious Collaboration have delivered workshops and consultancy from 2009 – 2016, and from 2017 will begin focussing  efforts on writing a Conscious Collaboration handbook and creating online modules.  Their focus is towards self-organisation beyond hierarchy working with groups and organisations to facilitate approaches and deliver resources which help navigate this complex territory.

Daniel Ó Cluanaigh has worked on protection of human rights defenders through research and advocacy at an international level, as well as grass-roots peace work, observation and accompaniment of communities at risk. He has extensive training and accompaniment experience in digital and overall protection of human rights defenders at a global level, and led the development of the concept of ‘Holistic Security’, including co-authoring the Holistic Security Manual.  He is a member of the Strategy Committee of Peace Brigades International Mexico.

Do is an anti-discrimination and WenDo* trainer, based in Poland. She dedicates a huge part of her professional work to Anti-discrimination Education Society, delivering workshops and trainings for a wide range of audience. She is also associated with Rural Development Foundation and Feminist Fund in Poland, and a member of Kopacze-Diggers collective which is a self-organized queer-feminist, activist and collective living project that hosts workshops, retreats and events around social and environmental struggles. *Self-defense and empowerment training methodology for women and trans* people.

The Ecodharma training collective have innovated and delivered programmes across 20 countries for close to a decade, collaborating with diverse organisations and trainers, to support hundreds of activists from across Europe. They’ve developed a renowned training programme that has supported a culture of sustainable activism.

Elka is a member of the LABO vwz trainer pool. She has worked “mostly with groups of young adolescents from different backgrounds in different places on earth”. She values the well-being of the people working in the organisations, which she sees as compromised by overly quantitive mindsets. in her work she looks for balance between action and self-care. She sees her strengths as: “Keeping an eye on the well-being of the individuals in a group. Give space for all kinds of emotions. Listen without judgement. Ask questions, including about myself.” She recognises the challenges to: “Be more aware of my non-verbal communication. Take space for my own emotions/processing. Not to over-question.”

The Eroles Project began in 2014 as a learning /training for action centre in the village of Eroles (Spain). They facilitate events, training programmes and summer residencies with the aim to grow a resilient network of change-makers, across Europe and beyond, who create participatory systemic projects within environmental, social and human rights movements in order to achieve impactful, creative and sustainable change.

Esra has been active in a variety of grassroots groups and civil society organisations in Turkey and in Belgium. She is passionate about climate justice, anti-racism, communities of resistance, and networks of solidarity. She is part of LABO vzw, a non-profit educational organisation that strives as a movement towards a strong civil society that collectively work to create social change and a commitment to social justice. She is currently working at European Network Against Racism (ENAR) and trying to contribute to a stronger and more resilient anti-racist movement.

George is a practitioner of the Theatre of the Oppressed, writer, performance poet and natural farmer who has travelled extensively across Europe and Asia working with groups ranging from the homeless in London, subsistence farmers in India, victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, to recovering heroin addicts and street kids in Kuala Lumpur. As founder of the training collective Reboot The Roots they have a decade of experience as a facilitator and educator in fields ranging from TESOL and drama therapy to drug rehabilitation and conflict resolution. They qualified in their Certificate in Joker Training and Certificate in Rainbow of Desire whilst working with Cardboard Citizens in 2010.

Gesine has been active in grassroots organizing for the last 20 years. In 2004, as a consequence of her own experience of trauma, she co-founded Activist Trauma Support in the UK with the aim to offer education and support to activists who suffered trauma through police brutality and state oppression. Aware of the need for healing and transformation within activists’ communities she spent over a decade in Oakland, California, in order to develop competency and to heal. She is now part of the teaching body of generative somatics and co-organizes and co-teaches somatics courses in Central Eastern Europe with inourbodies_onthestreets. Gesine holds the rank of black belt in Traditional Japanese Jujitsu, a Psychotherapy License in California, and an MA in Somatic Psychotherapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Among other modalities Gesine studied Generative Somatics, Hakomi, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Bodywork and Dramatherapy, and maintained for a decade a full-time practice as a somatic therapist and coach for social and environmental justice organizers. She is led by a commitment to support individuals, collectives and movements toward greater connection, healing, resilience, coordination and power through the body.

They, 46 years old, single parent, activist, bike mechanic, offset printer, psychologist, self-defense trainer for women. Unconditional love: Yohanes (13), Hermelijn (14) and Hazel (17). Loves playing football, cycling adventures on their own, kickboxing, colours, greasy and inky hands, creativity in all forms and actions, the vast landscape at the seaside. Ingriet worked in a publishing company as an offset-printer,  in an environmental NGO on energy poverty, in an anti-poverty organisation as a coach on environmental justice, in an anti-militaristic movement as an organiser and as a coordinator in a movement for critical citizenship. Now focussing on training and coaching. “Strenghts: Intuition (and the courage to follow it), life experience (and the ability to translate it so others can take benefits of it as well), coaching, (parental) care, empathy,  wondering about small things Confidence in group processes and ‘letting go’,  loves unexpected twists in a training. Being the glue and the (bio-degradable) glitter. Prioritises the topics of sustaining resistance, healthy groups and movements,‘battlegroundsurgery’. Challenges: ‘over-caring’, dealing with intensity, mornings.”

The Initiative for Sustainable Action (ISA) is a multi-disciplinary collective of trainers, facilitators and activists who seek to support human rights defenders at risk, in the development of strategies and tactics for well-being, digital security and overall protection. It is coordinated by: Daniel Ó Cluanaigh, Sandra Ljubinkovic, Ali Ravi, Peter Steudtner (see their individual entries for details).

Jael is part of a grassroots facilitation and training collective for social movements called KommunikationsKollektiv and the German action training network Skills for Action. They have been facilitation workshops on sustainable activism, consensus decision making and  anti-oppression. In recent years Jael has started to focus on the somatic part of transformation and social change and is part of a European politicized somatics group. Jael is also a part time organic grower.

Kara Moses (she/her) is a facilitator and trainer in nature connection, outdoor education and grassroots activism. She is passionate about nature, connection and the transformation of self and society to be more deeply connected and life-affirming. This involves facilitating practical applications of nature connection, to fields including direct action and social change, architecture and the built environment, mental health and emotional resilience, sustainability and climate change adaptation, and social inequality.

She has spent her life working in service of the earth in diverse ways, from direct action, grassroots organising and community work to environment journalism, academic research, environmental education and conservation management.

As well as independent facilitation and journalism, she works at the Centre for Alternative Technology where she manages woodlands and water, delivers courses, works with school groups and lectures on masters courses.

Kathryn has campaigned on a wide range of environmental and social justice issues for more than 30 years and has been offering training and facilitation to grassroots groups with Seeds for Change and now with Navigate for more than 13 years. She is continuously re-inspired by the commitment and creativity of the groups she works with. She enjoys working in an organisation that values learning, where we continuously reflect on and evaluate our work, develop our skills and learn new ones. She’s passionate about working cooperatively, ending oppression, building strong communities of resistance and staying energised, balanced and resilient and supporting others to do the same.

Kinga is an anti-oppression facilitator connected to the Anti-discrimination Education Association (TEA) in Poland, for nearly two decades active in prevention of discrimination in the formal and nonformal education. Involved in many national and international projects she has been working with youth workers, teachers, school psychologists and pedagogues on issues connected to gender and sexuality (e.g. combating trans- and homophobia, supporting nonheteronormative kids and their parents). Also working as a sex educator with teenagers and a WenDo trainer – a self-defence and assertiveness method for women, girls and trans* people. In recent years focused mostly on empowering people from discriminated groups through working with body, voice and self reflection on internalized oppressions.

The Klima*Kollektiv is struggling for a society which keeps the ecological balance and offers everyone access to the fundamental ressources. Furthermore, we want to create an economical and participatory system where those values and ideas are possible to develop and exist. Therefore the Klima*Kollektiv works on the three key fields of social change: education, creating alternative structures and debate & action

Kyle Sawyer (he/they) is an anti-oppression facilitator and educator specializing in working with individuals and organizations on how to turn privilege into change. He is a trans, queer, mixed-race, white-passing individual. With over a decade of experience Kyle founded Building Allies in 2013 and developed the term Active-Ally, someone who witnesses injustice and responds to it in any situation. Kyle has worked with teachers, nonprofit organizations, students, therapists, social workers, community members, family members, and many others on learning how to be Active-Allies through an intersectional lens. He has received over 400 hours of training in the experiential cycle and has worked throughout the United States and abroad. Recently Kyle was invited to the ULEX Centre in Catalonia as an international facilitator to train transgender identified individuals on collaboration and teamwork. Through their work Kyle has facilitated workshops for: The Los Angeles Probation Department, Department of Mental Health, Department of Children and Family Services, The Museum of Tolerance, Capistrano Unified School District, National Center for Trans Equality, Lambda Literary Writers Retreat, UCLA, USC, Harvey Mudd University, Antioch University Los Angeles, multiple national conferences, and many more. Kyle has also worked as a facilitator for Training for Change, TransCanWork, and The Transgender Law Center. Kyle’s organization, Building Allies, is a certified Continuing Education Provider through the CAMFT organization.

Combating discrimination and developing participation: these are two main areas of Magda’s performances. Magda is  an anti-discrimination and  social skills trainer with over 15 years of experience. Researcher, co-author of several publications on discrimination (especially in educational system and how economical system has affected women). Affiliated with The Society of Anti-Discrimination Education in Poland where she is currently coordinating project “CEE Prevent Net – Central and Eastern European Network for the Prevention of Intolerance and Group Hatred”. Also working as a consultant of communities’ participation in rural areas in Poland.

May (she/her) is an experienced nature facilitator, who’s been helping people to connect with nature for over 15 years and with Forest School Camps (FSC) alongside many other organisations. Most recently she co-founded the Natural Resilience Project, which builds personal resilience though connection to nature with migrant women in cities across the UK.

In her free time May is a passionate campaigner and activist, and for the last decade or more has worked on a range of issues, often with an environmental emphasis. With Plane Stupid she focused on aviation, and went on to help establish Grow Heathrow, a squatted community food growing project in the path of the proposed 3rd runway. After many years spent fighting dirty big business, and standing with communities being damaged by extractive industries with Reclaim the Power, her activism most recently joined the dots between the aviation industry’s ties with the UK home Office’s brutal process of deportation by charter flight. She was one of the Stansted 15 defendants in a long running court case which spanned between 2017-2019.

Mo currently lives in Berlin and Warsaw, working in the European Youth for Action (EYFA) network, supporting social and environmental struggles from EYFA’s office. Mo is an experienced trainer, a member of the SPINA trainer’s for social change collective, delivering numerous workshops, facilitating group processes and helping groups in need to figure out unhelpful dynamics, informal power relationships and conflicts they are facing. Recently Mo has published a book about gender bending, as the Polish Academy wasn’t ready to accept it as Mo’s PHD dissertation.

MovingSounds is a collective of facilitators, professional artists, musicians, performers and permaculturists who are passionate about the power of creativity and nature to transform lives and create a more sustainable future. As experienced facilitators they offer engaging and dynamic workshops to inspire and educate. Their workshops offer learners the opportunity to explore important issues around active citizenship including sustainability, social justice, leadership, creativity, and nature connection but always through a fun, engaging process that brings out the best in ourselves and each other.

Natasha’s years as a grassroots activist focused on environmental and social justice, and anti-militarism, evolved into a career as a professional campaigner which has spanned the last decade. She is a self described social change geek, obsessed about bringing fresh perspectives to the important question of how best campaigns, especially those focused on transformative systems change, can succeed. To this end she has convened numerous workshops and events exploring the theory and practice of many aspects of campaigning, and has gained a reputation as an activism expert in the UK. Having become frustrated with the limitations of NGO campaigning, Natasha now works as a freelancer, prioritising projects promoting community organising approaches and nurturing European social movements. Natasha also runs the Engaging Activists Facebook group and writes her own blog on activism and social change.

Senior Research Associate School for Policy Studies in the UK. His research interests include practices of freedom and community self-governance. This work draws on and sits between queer, anarchist and autonomous geographies, movement criticism around anti-/oppression and ‘community accountability’ and empirically grounded feminist governmentality scholarship. Recently Nate was Knowledge Exchange Fellow on Know Your Bristol on the Move, and then as Project Coordinator and Co-investigator on Mapping LGBT+ Bristol. He runs and co-facilitates workshops on non-hierarchical decision-making, community accountability, conflict resolution, and personal/collective resilience. He has strong connections to the Kebele Social Centre in Bristol, England. His facilitation work draws on and brings together anti-oppressive pedagogy, nature connection work’, secular mindfulness practices and  ‘The Work That Reconnects’.

Peter Steudtner is a documentary filmmaker and activist, wth 20 years of experience supporting peace workers and human rights defenders through trainings on conflict transformation, non-violent action, the do-no-harm approach and holistic security. Peter co-authored the Holistic Security Manual and his current projects include long-term accompaniment of journalists and HRDs in Kenya, Mozambique and Angola through his Digital Integrity Fellowship at Hivos.

Reboot the Roots is a charity that promotes social inclusion through the arts. It uses theatre, music and workshops to support people who are denied their rights to full, happy and active participation in society. This includes those recovering from addiction, people living with HIV/AIDS and individuals who have been in conflict with the law. They facilitate workshops with the socially excluded, train trainers from other organisations and NGOs in techniques of art for inclusion, and help other practitioners to achieve their goals through logistical support, consultation and funding. They believe that creative tools for social transformation can enable people to participate fully and equally in society.

They, Activist, traveler, idealist, Aries (fire starter). Loves: chocolate, making lists, kickboxing, writing, seemingly random encounters, dancing, trees, transformation, ritual, meditation, alpacas, purple, body-work and direct action. Trying to find a way to “reconcile their ‘hippie-side’ with my ‘anarchist-side’.” Has been active in a range of environmental and social justice issues, including a campaign against coal bed methane, squatting, forest occupation, and feminism. As a passionate traveller they had the privilege of observing or participating in different social movements and communities around the world.  “Strengths: emergent design, enthusiasm, intuition, embodied work, energisers, ritual, confrontation, being critical, holding the group container. Challenges: theory, patience (especially towards themselves), speaking slowly, full group discussions, letting go.”

Ruth Cross makes things happen. Her practice has developed from landscape performance and micro-choreography into coordinating projects which bring people together to talk, play, inspire and collaborate. She is an associate artist with Encounters Arts and Battersea Arts Centre and co-founder of The Eroles Project, an international network that explores inner work for outer action. Ruth founded Cross Collaborations in 2009, a collective who devise social actions and intimate live art performances which focus on voice, listening with compassion and connecting to the earth.

Sami is a grassroots organiser and facilitator, and one of the coordinators for the London Roots training collective. She supports groups around a variety of issues, including: group dynamics, intersectional and accountable organising, and managing diversity/inclusion and exclusion; group and campaign planning and strategy; training and preparing for direct action. Her bases are within anti-racist and de-colonial, feminist and queer/trans movements – and downtime between workshops is normally going into supporting these networks.

Sandra Ljubinkovic is a feminist activist with a professional background in feminist counseling, gender based violence, and trafficking in women and children and advocacy work for women’s human rights and the rights of marginalized groups (sex workers and LGBTIQ). As a counselor, facilitator and trainer she accompanies human rights defenders in developing sustainable approaches to activism, with an emphasis on self-care and well-being. She has been actively collaborating in the Holistic Security community since 2013.

Seeds For Change work with groups and organisations fighting to defend their communities, stopping environmental devastation and creating socially just and sustainable alternatives. They offer training, meeting facilitation and online resources on collective organising and consensus decision making, developing strategy, campaign and action skills, setting up groups and co-ops, co-operative governance and training for trainers.