We pride ourselves on having a young, talented and transnational team that works hard to ensure European alternatives is a continuous success story. Meet the team of staff behind our organization.
Meet the team
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Abhishek Chauhan
Project coordinator
Abhishek is currently a student of Politics in Kaunas, Lithuania, with his field of research on Politics in Post-Soviet/Communist states. Having previously lived and worked in Armenia and Georgia with several NGOs and dwelling into the complexities of the societies and looming Russian influence in the region, he decided to take part take in Academic approach to study the history, philosophy and political trajectories of these regions in Lithuania.
He has created projects such as Agora Project, Employ your Ability and Future Leaders Acting for Peace. He was also an Executive Director and CEO of the business company RegNest.
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Seema Syeda
Head Of Communications
Seema Syeda manages communications across European Alternatives. Working closely with Marta Cillero, this includes editing the European Alternatives Journal, renewing EA’s visual identity, updating EA website, social media and external communications, co-ordinating & delivering individual project communications including social media, videos, podcasts & other media, and helping plan and deliver trainings and assemblies.
Seema’s key project involvement includes Artsformation, the Transeuropa Festival, Youth Movement & Campaign Accelerator, Movement Learning Catalyst, Power to the People, Ukraine & the World, Decolonial Europe Day & more. She is active across EA’s ‘Inspire, Assemble, Train, Act and Research’ streams.
Seema also runs communications and Campaigns for UK-based campaign group Another Europe Is Possible, an alliance of progressives fighting the causes and consequences of Brexit. She has been active in grassroots climate activism to end fossil fuels and has worked as an editor and journalist. Her writing has been published in The Guardian and other outlets. She is interested in the deconstruction and dismantling of racial capitalism. She is based in Marseille and London.
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Gabrielle Jourde
Research Assistant
Gabrielle is based in Paris and works on the FIERCE project and the New Challenges ‘Litératures en Marges’ Festival. She holds a double bachelor degree in Literature from Sorbonne University and in Political Humanities from Sciences Po.
She is currently finishing her Master’s Degree in Gender Studies at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis with a literary research on queer parenthood and the ‘autotheory’ medium. In 2024, she will complete a second Master’s Degree at Sciences Po in Political Theory, and her research will focus on contemporary feminist theory.
Gabrielle is passionate about feminism, artistic creation and the circulation of political and collective commitment through different media. She has taken part in initiatives to combat sexual violence in higher education, in particular through the G.A.R.C.E.S collective. She also organizes musical events in the north-east of Paris as part of the Village Jourdain association, with the aim of taking over public spaces and strengthening social ties through greater access to art and culture.
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Laetitia Caumes
Research assistant FIERCE Project
Laetitia is working on FIERCE and is currently finishing her Master’s Degree in Gender Studies at the Université Paris 8 after completing her Erasmus at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. She has a Double Bachelor of Arts in French and German Literature and Culture Studies at Université Paris 3 and the Freie Universität Berlin. She grew up in Rabat, Morocco and in Vienna, Austria before moving to Paris in 2016.
Her Master’s Research is a comparative research on the mechanisms French and German activists put in place to fight against sexual violence without being instrumentalized by the far-right.
Since 2020, she is also a member of an ecofeminist collective based in Île de France called Voix Déterres and she has interned at the NGO ÉPhiScience, which specializes in critical thinking in 2021-2022 where she worked on designing a philosophical game around gender.
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Gabriela Ortiz Soto
Berlin Hub Coordinator
Gabriela Ortiz holds a law degree from the Universidad Catolica in Peru and a Master’s degree in Labor Policies and Globalization from the Global Labour University in Berlin, specializing in labor law, decent work, migration, gender equality and diversity. She wrote her Master’s thesis on the issue of transnational mobility of domestic workers using a legal and intersectional approach.
Gabriela joined European Alternatives’ Berlin Hub in June 2023. Prior to that, she gained experience in union organizing, mapping strategies and tools for Spanish-speaking migrant domestic workers in Washington D.C. She also had a short but enriching internship experience in Brussels conducting lobbying and labor relations research.
In addition to her job as Berlin Hub Coordinator of the School of Transnational Organizing, Gabriela is working on a voluntary basis on the creation and growth of the grassroots organizing community “Berlin Worker Center” to connect and support different workers’ struggles and build power.
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Camilo Alvarez Garrido
Creations & Publications Assistant
I’m an activist and researcher from Chile. I moved to Germany in 2019 to pursue a Master’s in Global Studies. Since 2020, I have been actively involved in the migrant labor struggle in Berlin, particularly in the organisation of delivery riders with the Gorillas Workers’ Collective and its network, as well as in the construction of transectorial alliance between labor, housing and climate activists through the Make Amazon Pay campaign.
Alongside European Alternatives’ Berlin Hub and the School of Transnational Organizing, I also work as a research assistant at the Humboldt University Institute of European Ethnology together with the Berlin Institute for Migration and Integration Research. My personal research is currently focused on the role of care practices in enabling intersectional solidarity building within organised spaces of resistance. I believe the most important task at hand in political organising is forging organisational cultures capable of attending to the complex diversity of our human needs, so as to allow us to pool our capacities together in more effective and sustainable ways.
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Viktoria Kostova
Project coordinator
Viktoria Kostova has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and just finished her Master’s degree in Management of Creative Industries and Cultural Organizations in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has worked for different NGOs in the sphere of culture and education locally and internationally, predominantly in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Tenerife, Sweden, UK and the USA.
She is interested in sustainability in the arts, activism, youth engagement and audience development.
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Csenge Schneider-Lonhart
Transeuropa Festival Local Coordinator
Csenge is the Local Coordinator of the TransEuropa Festival, taking place in Cluj this year. She was born in 1998 in Budapest. In 2022 she finished her Master’s degree in Contemporary Theatre at the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj Napoca, Faculty of Theatre and Film. She has volunteered at various festivals, such as the TESZT Festival in Timișoara, the Interferences Festival and the Khetane festival in Cluj .
She was one of the founders of the Questioning Reality Festival, the first research festival in Cluj-Napoca, organised around the topic of the Smart City concept of Cluj. The QR project debates, analyses, and dissects, together with the local community, the hidden problems of a smart city.
She is currently collaborating with Casa Tranzit, where she is involved in projects that address interaction and care for children. She is part of the movement Social Housing NOW!, which is a local movement for public housing and housing justice.
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Gabriela Siegel
Grassroots Community Manager
Gabriela was an intern at the Berlin Hub of European Alternatives, working on the School of Transnational Organizing‘s education and training programs for migrant workers, East German & Eastern European activists, as well as youth activists and campaigners from across Europe.
She has almost ten years of experience in direct legal services, community organising, and policy work with refugee and immigrant communities, both in Lebanon and the US. Gabriela worked in the US as a movement lawyer, representing low-income undocumented individuals, first in their immigration cases and later on employment and labour matters. She also worked on designing and implementing benefits and policies to support low-income immigrants in New York State. She is currently completing a master’s programme through the Global Labour University on Labour Policies and Globalisation.
Since April 2023, Gabriela has transitioned into her new role as Grassroots Community Manager building, holding, and caring for our community and network in Berlin and across Europe.
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Billie Dibb
Logistics Maestra and Project Witch
Billie works within the logistics of the Paris Office and assists in the ‘imagination’ projects of European Alternatives, mainly ‘New Challenges’, ‘Room To Bloom’ and FIERCE. They have an academic background in International Politics, with a focus on gendered nationalism and big data.
She also has experience within the asylum & migration sector across the UK & France, volunteering for multiple groups over the last 7 years covering roles in event management, graphics & communications, campaigning, and coordination.
Billie created and runs an event in Paris, ‘La Voisin’, an exhbo-cum-party creating a space for feminist thought and artistic expression. She is passionate about, and dabbles in, the creative possibilities of new technologies in the arts and how they can facilitate social change.
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Jana Ahlers
Grassroots Education Manager
Jana is Grassroots Education Manager at European Alternatives, working within the School of Transnational Organizing. She is dedicated to creating transformative learning spaces and building capacity to collaboratively strategize for system change.
With a background in education, she has a passion for critical and experiential pedagogy and research interest in how social movements learn and engage in counter-hegemonic knowledge production.
As a social and climate justice organizer and activist she has experience and a wide network across the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, the UK, and Germany.
Most recently, she coordinated the programme of the People’s Summit for Climate Justice in Glasgow. Working with the COP26 Coalition, she draws on capacity organizing with a wide range of civil society groups, ranging from environment and development NGOs, to grassroots community campaigns, youth groups, indigenous groups, and migrant and racial justice networks.
Outside of EA, Jana is a Berlin-based grassroots organizer and activist, steadily pushing towards new imaginaries and strategic wins by the people.
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Myriam Zekagh
Project coordinator
Myriam Zekagh is coordinating EA’s programme and evaluation system. Myriam works on developing and evaluating projects with high social impact, engaging with local activists, civil society organisations and local authorities outside of Europe, most notably in North Africa, on behalf of European, American and international organisations.
Through this work and her training in sociology, she has shown a real interest for social change, and gained solid experience and expertise in conflict resolution, community development projects and participatory processes.
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Ophélie Masson
Ophélie coordina il progetto “Assemblee della solidarietà” e diverse altre aree chiave di lavoro di European Alternatives, compresa la coalizione “Citizens Takeover Europe”.
Ha lavorato come responsabile della comunicazione per diverse ONG internazionali, dove si è concentrata sulla definizione di nuove narrazioni comuni e sulla promozione di processi linguistici inclusivi. Ha creato e condotto campagne a livello europeo, impegnandosi con attori che vanno dalle organizzazioni di base alle istituzioni europee. Ha anche lavorato nella comunicazione per un deputato al Parlamento europeo.
Ophélie è una femminista impegnata, che crede in un approccio intersezionale per porre fine a tutte le forme di violenza e oppressione di genere. È appassionata di ceramica e fa volontariato con organizzazioni locali che difendono i diritti LGBT+. Ha partecipato al film “En ce Moment”, selezionato alla Biennale di Venezia.
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Georg Blokus
Berlin Hub Director & Head of Organizing Education
Georg Blokus, born in 1987 near the Polish Solidarnosc city of Gdansk, is the Director of European Alternatives’ Berlin Hub, which primarily runs the School of Transnational Organizing – a grassroots school for political activists, civil society organisations, labor organizers, political artists, migrant communities, and social movements seeking for skills and tools to build the next generation of movements and organisations.
He is a psychologist by training and has been working for several years as a transformative organizer, documentary theatermaker, movement educator, and political strategist with progressive pioneers and organisations. Because of his own family history, his focus is on organizing workers, migrants, and feminists on the frontlines to build solidarity and fight for their rights beyond borders.
Before joining European Alternatives in early 2021, he worked as Artistic-Pedagogical Director of the Academy of the Arts of the World/Cologne from 2014 to 2016, and initiated the SCHOOL OF POLITICAL HOPE as a place for citizens, communities, and civil society actors seeking inspiration, empowerment, and support to overcome our shared feeling of political powerlessness and revive the lost art of organizing solidarity.
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Letizia Gullo
Letizia Gullo si è laureata in Storia contemporanea. Ha lavorato come redattrice e traduttrice in Italia, Francia e Stati Uniti. Nel 2010 ha iniziato a occuparsi di documentari come autrice e regista. Ha partecipato come coautore con il regista Stefano Savona a un progetto per un archivio audiovisivo di storie di vita di anziani ex contadini siciliani, da cui sono stati tratti due film, Spezzacatene e Sulla stessa barca. Ha diretto, con Ester Sparatore, Mare Magnum, un documentario sulle elezioni comunali di Lampedusa, un altro punto di vista sulla migrazione nel Mediterraneo. Ha diretto con Dagmawi Yimer il cortometraggio Giocherenda (vincitore del bando Migrarti del Ministero dei Beni Culturali) e il lungometraggio Strade Minori (in corso) entrambi su un gruppo di giovani rifugiati africani a Palermo. Collabora con Arte TV e insegna in workshop di regia per studenti di cinema e giovani rifugiati.
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Segolene Pruvot
Ségolène Pruvot è direttrice culturale di Alternative europee. Formatasi come politologo e urbanista in Francia, Regno Unito e Germania, ha sviluppato una vasta esperienza nella progettazione e realizzazione di programmi culturali partecipativi transnazionali.
Ségolène ha guidato il Progetto Europa Creativa sulla ricostruzione del Rifugio Europa ed è ricercatrice nell’ambito del progetto H2020-RISE Co-creazione incentrato sulle aree urbane svantaggiate.
Ségolène è appassionata di uguaglianza, femminismo, migrazioni, diritti delle minoranze. È ricercatrice in sociologia urbana presso l’Università di Milano Bicocca e si occupa di come l’arte possa aiutare a costruire una (più) giusta città; esplorando esperimenti di teatro partecipativo in un’area a nord di Parigi (Saint-Denis). Da 15 anni lavora anche come consulente del programma europeo URBACT (www.urbact.eu), che comprende un gran numero di buone pratiche municipali in pratiche alternative nell’educazione e nell’accoglienza dei migranti.
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Niccolò Milanese
Niccolò è direttore di European Alternatives. Attualmente è un European’s Future’s Fellow all’IWM di Vienna. Niccolò ha studiato a Cambridge, Siena e Parigi, dove è stato borsista dell’Entente Cordiale. A parte European Alternatives, è stato coinvolto nella fondazione di numerose organizzazioni politiche e culturali, riviste e iniziative su diverse sponde del Mediterraneo.
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Martin Pairet
Martin è il Network Manager di European Alternatives dal gennaio 2016. È responsabile dello sviluppo della rete transnazionale dell’organizzazione e della comunicazione e organizzazione dei membri. Martin lavora nel settore no-profit da più di otto anni con esperienza nello sviluppo dei membri, nella comunicazione e nella raccolta fondi in organizzazioni internazionali come IFOAM – Organics International e Oxfam France. È inoltre impegnato come membro di SOS Méditerranée, un’organizzazione civica europea per il salvataggio delle persone in difficoltà nel Mediterraneo e di MitOst, una rete internazionale di attori culturali e cittadini attivi. È molto interessato al modo in cui gli attivisti e le organizzazioni della società civile si articolano e si organizzano per influenzare la politica europea sia a livello di base che istituzionale.
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Lorenzo Marsili
Lorenzo Marsili è un filosofo, attivista e uno dei co-fondatori di European Alternatives. In precedenza ha lavorato nel giornalismo culturale a Londra e Pechino, dove ha fondato la rivista Naked Punch Review. È stato il promotore dell’Iniziativa europea per il pluralismo dei media, una campagna internazionale che chiede una migliore protezione del pluralismo e della libertà dei media a livello europeo, e di Dialoghi transnazionali, un programma pluriennale di scambio artistico tra innovatori culturali in Cina, Brasile ed Europa. Nel suo libro Citizens of Nowhere: How to Save Europe for Itself (Zed Books 2018, scritto con Niccolò Milanese), racconta la storia di Alternative europee all’interno di una più ampia analisi politica e filosofica della crisi dello Stato-nazione. È un commentatore regolare dei media europei e si è laureato in filosofia e sinologia all’Università di Londra.
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Marta Cillero
Marta Cillero è responsabile delle comunicazioni. di European Alternatives. Si è laureata in Media Studies, Giornalismo e Comunicazione (Madrid, Istanbul e Chicago) e ha un master in Studi di genere (Roma). Ha pubblicato diversi articoli e rapporti di ricerca sulla violenza di genere nei paesi del Mediterraneo.
È membro del comitato esecutivo e project manager di Chayn Italia, un’organizzazione pluripremiata con sede in Italia, Pakistan, India e Regno Unito che aiuta le donne che subiscono abusi e violenza di genere attraverso risorse multilingue aperte e gratuite sulla sicurezza online.