Fasil is a chartered accountant (ACMA, CGMA) and founding partner of Community Focused Accountancy. Fasil decided to leave a successful career in London working for a renowned asset management firm, European Credit Management, in search of a way to provide financial advice to community-based organisations in Scotland. Fasil has been serving as Treasurer of Gaia Education since 2015 and, more specifically, he manages the finances of GE projects in the Global South.

Emmanuel Khodja (Manu) works with a whole system design approach, promoting personal, organisational and environmental integrated development. Co-founder and first president of the NGO and Ecovillage Terra Una/Brazil, where he has been living since 2007. Academic coordinator of Gaia Education online courses in Portuguese, co-leader and educator in Gaia Education programmes in Brazil. Groups and processes facilitator, especially interested in next stage organisations. Founder of BioSistemica.com.br, a consulting, projects and training company working in sustainability, organisational change, permaculture and regenerative cultures.

Silvia Di Blasio is an Argentinian born Design for Sustainability graduate and EDE facilitator with a lifelong passion and dedication to social justice, sustainability, and transformational change. With a degree in Psychopedagogie and Adult Education, Silvia has specialized on eLearning, curriculum design and facilitation for social change. Silvia has been with Gaia Education since 2018, first as an eLearning assistant and, since July 2020 as eLearning coordinator; she oversees and supports, along with the GaiaEd team, the programmes in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Silvia brings a long track record of working as an educator, curriculum designer, online specialist, career coach and facilitator in organizations that include, among others the Work That Reconnects Network, the Permaculture Women’s Guild and three NGOs supporting immigrants and refugees to Canada.

Yan is part of our e-Learning team. Graduated in engineering, he has been exploring a holistic worldview in his life, as well as a concept of sustainability and regeneration. Has experience supporting EDEs and educational projects, leading to an era of collaboration and transformation. 

Ivan Ballesteros Barnie is part of the E-Learning Team. Intercultural mediator, facilitator and team and community coach. He has ten years of international experience exploring communities where personal ,community development, and artistic development were the main axes. He has founded several organizations in Europe, coordinating educational programs and regenerative projects.  In his life he has been active in many fields of sustainability, including the social field, committed spirituality, rural regeneration, collaborative economy and eco-construction. He lives as a nomad, travelling in different communities and ecovillages where he carries out his purpose “to connect people with themselves, with others and with nature through the experience of community”.

Macaco Tamerice (Martina Grosse Burlage) is a sociologist, a life coach for meaningful relationships specialized in community-building, inner transformation, leadership and conflict resolution. She has been living at Damanhur since 1993, where she has held many roles of social and artistic responsibility, not last leading the Federation. In 2008, she became Vice President and then President of the Global Ecovillage Network-Europe (GEN Europe) until 2015. She is one of GEN’s UN representatives and the President of the NGO Damanhur Education. Macaco is a multi-lingual international speaker, facilitator of many courses and seminars and a certified GEESE Educator (since 2011) Trained in music and voice, she has toured as a professional jazz singer in Europe, Canada and Japan and has lead voice classes and seminars since 1984. In her life she has been active in many fields of sustainability, from the social realm and engaged spirituality to economy and eco-building. She lives in a straw bale house that she built together with her husband.

Taisa is passionate about Ecovillages and regenerative education. She has coordinated and taught Ecovillage Design Education Programmes since 2009, having contributed to 30 certified EDEs all over in Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Argentina and online. Education & Research Coordinator at the Global Ecovillage Network (since 2019); Board Member of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA), she is currently the Project Manager of the Erasmus+ partnership project Regenerative Communities for All (ReGEN4ALL) on Ecovillage research.Leader author of the GEN Regenerative Urban Communities Manual. Author of the book Ecovillages: building a regenerative culture. Professor at the Post-Graduate Program on Pedagogy of Cooperation and Social Methodologies (UNIP/Projeto Cooperação) in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo since 2014. She holds a master's degree in Psychosociology of Communities and Social Ecology (EICOS/UFRJ) and a Bachelor in Social Communications (ECO/UFRJ).Taisa is Brazilian and works globally as a trainer, consultant and researcher in the fields of sustainability, regenerative education and community life. She has contributed to transition initiatives both in urban and rural areas. Co-founder of Terra Una Ecovillage (MG, Brazil), she also lived, for several years, in small urban communities in Rio.

Trained in Social Entrepreneurship, and with a chemical engineering background, Leonor is an enthusiast for people and their societies, looking to apply and develop her entrepreneurial and professional skills to bring about positive social impact. She has been working in the third sector since 2018, having worked in multiple roles and all kinds of organisations from regional NGOs to the United Nations. She is the founding curator of the Global Shapers Community Hub in Kutaisi, Georgia where she is currently based, a community of doers who want to have a positive impact in their society. In Gaia Education, she is our Projects and Programmes Support Associate. She wants to expand Gaia's Network and spread sustainable education as much as possible throughout the world.

Saskia is our Marketing and Communications Manager at Gaia Education. She originally comes from Finland and has an international background after living in several countries around the world. She has a degree in Marketing with Digital Media from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. Previously she has worked in digital marketing for a local charity as well as a support worker for children and young adults in need. At Gaia Education Saskia provides support and information for existing and potential students by connecting with them daily.

Luigi is our IT and Backoffice Supporter. He is based in Porto, Portugal. Where he studies International Relations and helps Gaia Education to have a fantastic website and other systems working properly!

Ana is a graphic designer with a background in the sustainable development field. She worked in different projects and organizations between Brazil and Switzerland always building bridges. Ana worked with artisans in the Amazon Rainforest, in a major recycling program in Brazil, in a startup accelerator in Geneva and also cofounded a fair trade store in Rio de Janeiro.With a natural interest for initiatives enabling women empowerment, Ana is currently an independent professional with more than 11 years of international experience. A natural communicator with excellent people skills, Ana creates customized graphic design works that translate ideas into images. Ana is also certified mediator with a social development perspective by EcoSocial Institute endorsed by her cultural exchange experience living & working in different countries.

Henrique has an interdisciplinary scientific education in astronomy, nanotechnology, archaeology and cultural studies. Based in Braga, Portugal, he has worked on youth science education, technological innovation and several other businesses, from sports equipment to thermic isolation made from recycled paper.  He is the founder of a branch of New Acropolis in Braga, an international organization for human development through philosophy, culture and volunteering. He teaches philosophy at New Acropolis since 2012 and leads ecological projects of reforestation and river cleaning. At Gaia Education he is responsible for all the technical IT challenges to deliver our courses and connecting a community of practice joining efforts to regenerate our world.

Rafael is our Spanish and Portuguese Communications Coordinator. He comes from Brazil and has a degree in journalism, having also a background working with advertising agencies and marketing in the corporate world. As an enthusiast of permaculture, he has an interest in regenerative cultures, especially in the subjects related to agroecology, sustainable models of land occupation, and bioregionalism. At Gaia Education, he brings his experience and skills to promote sustainability and transformative education for the paradigm shift we want to see in the world.

An avid reader and learner, deeply committed to the interrelated challenges of avoiding the climate crisis, recovering biodiversity and achieving social justice, through community-led, Nature Based Solutions. 

Javier is now  based near Granada (Spain), and has been interested in ecovillages and sustainable communities since he helped organise the EYFA Ecotopia gathering in Ukraine in 2003. Later, he lived for 14 years in the intentional community of Can Masdeu near Barcelona, practising  regenerative agriculture and beekeeping, and working as an environmental educator. For the last 5 years, he has been developing and writing research proposals, working with a wide diversity of organisations, such as the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the  Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation (IUNG) in Pulawy, Poland. 

He brings his experience in facilitating knowledge exchange between different kinds of organisations and scientific disciplines in order to develop projects with a participative, holistic and proactive approach to research.

Peter is a change agent and works with the use of whole systems, transition and regenerative design approaches, principles and methods, including permaculture, to provide support through integral and participatory facilitation for individuals, groups, neighborhoods, communities and organisations to co-create and co-design our sustainable futures of regenerative and thriving cultures, places, environments and local but globally networked livelihoods. Peter has a background and experiences in earth systems, environmental and sustainability sciences and has been involved in many small to large projects in these fields of practice in a number of countries and regions, with a recent focus on training, education and facilitation for regeneration. He is a Gaia Education certified trainer, a GEN Ambassador, Earth Charter Educator and Ecological Footprint Trainer and is or was actively involved with GEN Australia and Austria, Cohousing Australia and Transition Towns Austria. One of his main areas of interest include pathways towards transforming our worldviews, beliefs, values, mind sets and attitudes towards the generation of regenerative cultures.

Jonathan Dawson is a sustainability educator who until recently led Schumacher College’s innovative Regenerative Economics postgraduate programme that he co-created and led for over a decade. He was the original principal author of the Gaia Education sustainable economy curriculum that has been endorsed by UNITAR and adopted by UNESCO as a valuable contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. He has taught this curriculum at universities, ecovillages and community centres in various countries across Africa, Europe and Latin America. Jonathan spent over a decade resident in the Findhorn ecovillage in Scotland, during while time he served as President of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) and coordinator of GEN-Europe. He has ten years of experience as a consultant, researcher, author and project manager in the Global South in the fields of small enterprise development and organisational development, specialising in the creation and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems. Jonathan is a fellow of the Findhorn Foundation and of Schumacher College, a member of the advisory board of Gaia Education and a member of the scientific advisory committee of Le Campus de la Transition located near Paris. Currently, Jonathan’s primary research interest is into The transformative power of holistic pedagogy, what at Schumacher College is referred to as a pedagogy of head, heart and hands. He is pursuing this area of research through both academic research and publishing and as a practitioner in diverse learning spaces.

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