Meet our team
Our day to day operations are taken care of by our staff team, both remotely and in our office in Arterra Bizimodu ecovillage, Navarra (Spain). Our Council, selected from and by our members at our General Assembly, takes care of our strategic vision.
You can contact our team using the contact form.
The GEN Europe staff team
Angel Matilla
IT Manager
Since 2017, Angel has been living in the community of Arterra Bizimodu and working in the GEN Office Team as IT Manager to help strengthen GEN Europe’s IT sovereignty by means of promoting self-hosted free open source software (FOSS) throughout the network to cover ourIT needs. He has a telecommunications engineering background and 10 years of experience in developing and integrating software and managing technical teams. In 2011 he started developing an interest in the limits of growth, the fossil fuels’ peak and the non-sustainable practices of the current society. Since then he has been researching other ways of solving the polycrisis by living life, in more regenerative, self-sufficient, resilient and communal ways.
Armin Olunczek
Finance Manager
Armin joined GEN Europe in the beginning of 2020. Ten years before he cofounded an award winning charity for environmental education and is working in its board ever since. With this and the experience of cofounding and managing a many-sided community (with historical water power station, wood and grounds) since 2014 he gained skills that are also useful to manage the finances and administrative paperwork of GEN Europe.
If not buried under numbers and spreadsheets Armin likes to perform classical music at life threatening places as part of the Civil Disobedience Orchestra and Choir “Lebenslaute” or is out in the woods with his two children to pursue the community‘s forest conversion – or simply to build a hut.
Carolin Waldmann Membership Manager
Carolin grew up with a deep longing and sense for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible and found herself through that exploring the Ecovillage Movement and allied movements since 2016.
Her journey led her to the Findhorn Ecovillage in the North of Scotland which is the place she calls home since 2019 and where she has been holding the GEN Intl. office and working in the education team until Nov 2022.
Besides her networking, administrative and project management skills that she brings to the role, she is also a passionate musician using creativity and the magic of music for healing and as community-building tool and glue.
Dicte Frost
Events Manager
Dicte has been fascinated by the ecovillage movement since she was a child and is now part of co-creating the community FRYD in Denmark. She started as a freelance event coordinator and project manager in 2016 and has since moved towards combining her two passions by creating gatherings and festivals in and for the ecovillage movement. As Gathering Coordinator for GEN Europe, Dicte is working to create spaces of hope, inspiration, magic and interconnection.
Dario Ferraro
Project Scout
Fanny van Hal
Project Manager
Fanny grew up in an intentional community of 18 households located in the fruit basket region of the Netherlands. She moved to the Arterra Bizimodu community in Spain in 2015.
Always having had an interest in ecovillages, Fanny travelled and visited several eco projects around the world, ranging from occupied villages to self-sufficient farms and ecovillages and did her final thesis project with the Council of Sustainable Settlements of Latin America (CASA) and their national network CASA Colombia.. Through these experiences and growing up in one such community she has come to value living in a communal setting for the ways that diverse individuals promote sharing, working together, organisation, planning, and conflict resolution.
Manja Vrenko
General Coordinator
Manja is a co-founding member of the Sunny Hill community in Slovenia, where she lives and works. She has been involved in different working groups in GEN Europe since 2014, and she serves in a role of the membership officer since May 2021 . She contributed to development of the Community Incubator (CLIPS) program, and she is an experienced facilitator. At Sunny Hill she is in charge for organization of events and workshops promoting sustainable lifestyle and ecovillage culture. She is a permaculture practitioner, and when she is not involved with one of her various projects, she cultivates land, cares for goats, bakes bread and makes cheese.
Maja Flajsig
Communications Manager
Maja has been seeking for more profound connections with human and more-than-human world since her childhood. Being interested in the communities these relations create, she finished her masters degree in Anthropology in Croatia, where she comes from.
Her passion for co-creation led her to collaborate with various environmental and climate organisations in need for creative campaigns and communication strategies. These alliances inspired her to travel across many different (eco)villages and projects, finally bringing her to a growing rural community on the island of Crete where she lives.
This journey provided Maja with networking and management skills while nurturing her creative spark and love for the world. She brings all of the gifts life has offered her to the role of Communications Manager in GEN Europe, maintaining her constant pursuit of the social and ecological regeneration.
The GEN Europe Council
Stefanie Raysz
Schloss Tempelhof
Stefanie is the mother of three teenagers. She has studied in Germany and Great Britain. She is a teacher and holds a Master degree in corporate management. From 2018-2022 she was a member of the board in GEN Germany, since 2021 she is in the GEN Europe Council.
Active in GEN network she is part of the German National Network and has been working in several GEN cooperations and projects with the Federal Environmental Agency. Stefanie has always engaged politically in environmental and peace actions, has found an association on sustainability issues and focused on regional and urban development. She is the speaker of the initiative “Schule bleibt offen” with the constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court against Covid measurements in schools.
Abdul Otman
Little Wild
Abdul was born in Libya, raised in France, initially joined Suderbyn Ecovillage as a European Solidarity Volunteer, lived in Findhorn (Scotland), and is now establishing the Little Wild ecovillage in the French Pyrenees.
He holds an engineering degree in Digital Technologies from Telecom SudParis and a Master of Science in Information and Communication Technologies from the Asian Institute of Technology. He brings his strong IT background as well as Project and Operations Manager with significant experience in building teams and inspiring them to be agents of change.
He brings a direct link of GEN Europe with ECOLISE as well as with Chemins de la Transition and is inspired to connect French movements with Europe, and vice versa.
Teodora Radulescu
Schloss Glarisegg
Teodora is a spaceholder, facilitator and trainer for transformative spaces where people get the chance to experience deep connection and collective presencing.
Since she was 23 she lived in Aurora Community, a fairly remote permaculture oriented community. After four years of nomadic travel in over 30 eco-community projects, she decided to stabilize in Schloss Glarisegg, Switzerland, from which she creates, organises and builds workshops on sustainability and resilience for adults and youth. She is the co-founder of several human-centered associations in Romania and Switzerland, and has dedicated her life to the support of the unfolding of human potential. A professional designer, Permaculture Teacher, Sociocracy 3.0 passionate and a Dragon Dreaming space holder, Teodora works with cutting edge tools to empower people, groups and organisations to unleash their collective potential, connect and create. She brings her knowledge and skill from the world of Ecovillage and Intentional Communities, where she has served and lived in for over 10 years.
Jake Jay-Lewin
Findhorn
Jake grew up in the Findhorn Community and has stayed active in the Ecovillage world since. He co-founded NextGEN International and spent seven years in various leadership positions across it and NextGEN Europe, the youth arm of the Global Ecovillage Network; supporting and designing their emergence.
He draws on his experiences from visiting close to 50 communities worldwide in his work as a professional facilitator, coach, trainer, and project manager.
Monique Wijn
GEN NL
Monique Wijn is an educator and trainer in permaculture and ecovillage tools and methods. She is co-founder and board member of the Dutch Ecovillage Network, GEN Netherlands, where she organises the summer and winter national meeting, the yearly festival and and the 3-4 yearly newsletter. She is international representative of GEN-NL in Europe and Dutch representative and co-coördinator of the CLIPS project, the Erasmus+ partnership in developing trainings for starting communities.
Ave Oit
Lilleoru
Ave is one of the leaders of Lilleoru and has been connected to the community for over 30 years.
