Special advisor on sponsorship and funding to the RN 1989

Jörg Forbrig is a Program Officer for Central and Eastern Europe with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Prior to that, he worked as a research fellow at the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, Poland. Educated at universities in Germany, Poland and Hungary, he completed a Ph.D. dissertation on civil society in East-Central Europe at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
As a researcher and practitioner, Jörg has published widely on democracy, civil society, and Central and Eastern European affairs. Recent books include Revisiting Youth Political Participation (2005), Ukraine after the Orange Revolution (with Robin Shepherd, 2005) and A New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region (with Ronald D. Asmus and Konstantin Dimitrov, 2004).
 

Special advisor on conferences and facilitation to the RN 1989

Yael Ohana has been working in non-formal education and capacity building in the civil sector, especially with youth related organizations, since 1995. From 2000 to 2005 she was employed by the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe as an educational advisor at the European Youth Centre Strasbourg, in which capacity her main responsibilities included the management of priority work programmes, including the facilitation of the work of statutory organs and the assessment of grant and other applications for support, evaluation of programmes, the planning and implementation of large scale events such as symposia, conferences, campaigns, youth events, implementation of research projects and publication activities, assisting non-governmental organisations to plan and implement educational training programmes, the development and implementation of pilot training and course models for NGO capacity building - regionally targeted provision, e.g. Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Caucasus, South East Europe and for specific target groups e.g. minority groups.
Since October 2005, Yael has worked as a freelance training and capacity building consultant providing services such as training, advice, event organisation and editorial services in the youth, NGO capacity building, development and human resources fields to clients such as Habitat for Humanity International, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Council of Europe and Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia.
Yael’s main thematic fields of interest and specialization are human rights education, citizenship, minorities, peace, conflict transformation, globalization, racism, youth participation in local and regional life, democracy. She is the co-founder of Frankly Speaking – Training an Development www.frankly-speaking.org and www.nonformality.org

Special advisor on media and communications to the RN 1989

Piotr Pykel works for the Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polsat in the International Relations Department.
Piotr was born in Warsaw. He studied in the Czech Republic and Italy, graduating from Universita’ degli Studi di Padova (with a thesis on Vaclav Havel). Returning to Poland in 1999, he worked for two years on projects related to the post-communist transformation and its impact on the Polish media. In 2000 he was part of the first group of Polish researchers admitted to the European University Institute (History and Civilisation Department). In November 2004 he defended his PhD thesis The Final Stage. A Comparative Study of the Transition from Communist Rule to Democratic Government in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
While at the EUI, Piotr also researched the history of Solidarity and other trade unions in Poland (1980-1989) and the expulsion of Germans (or, rather, people with German as first/native language) from Czechoslovakia after 1945. His current research interests focus on post-1989 realities in Central and Eastern Europe, in particular on issues that are defined by memory and change.

last modified: 2007-08-01