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Meet the team

Executive committee members

Nicola Young Jackson
President

Nicola represents the British Humanist Association and was elected as President of IHEYO in August 2014.  Previously she served as Treasurer and helped with the coordination of IHEYO activities in The Philippines, Uganda and The Netherlands.

She first became actively involved in Humanism in 2007. This was when she left her Yorkshire village moved to Leeds to study Molecular Genetics. In her first week of university she joined the Humanist society there. She spent 3 years on the committee holding the positions: Secretary, Interfaith Coordinator and Humanist Chaplain. Later Nicola went on to be Secretary of the national student Humanist movement in the UK and Ireland (The AHS). Throughout Nicola's voluntary involvement within Humanism, she has always tried to use her positions not only to strengthen the organisations, but also to benefit humanity as a whole, trying to encourage charity, inclusiveity, and interfaith.

Nicola  is a lifelong Humanist, whilst also proud of her Jewish heritage. She enjoys taking photographs, blogging and traveling. After working on 3 continents, she now lives in London, she sings in the British Humanist Association Choir and works as an Administrator/Estimator for a high end bespoke Furniture Company.

Gulalai Ismail
Secretary

Gulalai Ismail is the Secretary of IHEYO. She was born and still lives in Pakistan. She founder of Aware Girls, an organisation that empowers young women. Amoungst her many awards. She has been recognized as an Agent of Change by the British High Commission in Pakistan. She has been acknowledged one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 by Foreign Policy magazine. 

Dietrik Jolie
Treasurer

Dietrik is IHEYO's Treasurer. He first got involved in Humanism when he joined a student society in Belgium. He currently splits his time between studying business and working. His enjoys sewing tiny costumes for his pet mice and photographing them.

Uttam Niraula
Communication Officer

Uttam has support IHEYO and held almost every IHEYO position there is to hold. He is a very active Humanist in Nepal. He is married with one daughter and a pet snake. He is a Human Rights activist and amoungst other things he campaigns against 'Untouchability'. At home he has a large collection of painted snail shells. 

Kato Mukasa
Chairman African Working Group

KATO MUKASA is a Ugandan Humanist leader, a Economist, a Lawyer and a Human Rights activist and defender. He has a twin brother,  is a family man, a poet, a writer and out spoken secularist. He has been a youth leader for over 15 years. This begain when he served as a Prefect, Head Prefect (at primary and secondary levels) and a Minister at University level. He went on  to be President of Uganda's Young Leaders Platform. He is the founding Chairperson of the Humanist Association for Leadership, Equity and Accountability (HALEA). He is also a Trustee of the Uganda Humanist Association. He served as a IHEYO Coordinator for East Africa for a year and he is currently the Chair for African Working Group. Kato Mukasa now focuses on dedicating his efforts in the African Working Group, such that there is a growth of Humanism in Africa, new teams from different countries are enabled to emerge, grow and join global Humanist movements that will empower millions of people to live life in its fullness.

Roslyn Mould
Secretary African Working Group

Roslyn Mould is a Ghanaian and  a member of the Humanist Association Of Ghana which was formed in 2012. As a member of the Association, She volunteered to participate in various activities for the growth of the group such as promoting humanism via social media and the local press media and organizing frequent meetings of the group. Among others, She assisted in the organization of the first ever West African Humanist Conference in 2012 sponsored by IHEYO.

She is a graduate of the University of Ghana with a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Modern Languages, specifically, French and  Spanish languages.

She is a Fashion Model Consultant of a Fashion modeling and Etiquette Academy called TipToe Model Management. She loves to travel, read and watch documentaries.

Sven Berg Ryen
Chairman, Asian Working Group (Asian Humanist Alliance)

Sven comes from Norway, and has been in the IHEYO board since he was elected committee member in 2008. He was first in touch with IHEYO at the annual conference in 2006, Vijayawada, India, and also took part in the conference in Ronse, Belgium in 2007. Sven has since 2011 been chairman of Asian Humanist Alliance, and expanded the Asian group to cover Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, in addition to the previous focus on South Asia (Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh).

Sana Sohail
Secretary, Asian Working Group (Asian Humanist Alliance)

Sana first became Secretary of IHEYO's Working Group in Asia in 2013. She has since attended the conferences in the Philipines. She runs a theater group that empowers young woman. She lives in Pakistan with her husband and baby. She has an MA in Political Sciences and enjoys watching films.

Lennart Kolenberg
Chairman European Working Group

Lennart is from the Netherlands and has been the Chairman of the European Working Group since 2012. He studies at the University for Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, and is writing my Master thesis on the use of narrative humanistic counseling and music (thus combining his two greatest passions!). He has been involved in youth humanism in the Netherlands since 2009, and soon started organizing events, introducing an international scope to our youth wing. He first got involved with IHEYO after the 2011 World Humanist Congress in Oslo, when he represented his organization. It only took a year for the peopl of IHEYO to trust him with the Executive Committee as Chairman of the working group.

As chair, he works on bringing together humanist organizations in Europe through the exchange of tools and information and by being able to meet each other face to face. In 2013 he was involved in the organization of the first ever European Humanist Youth Days, and he is  now heading the organizational committee for the second edition, to be held in the Netherlands in 2015. In August 2014, he was re-elected as chair of the EWG and he plans to build on the work he has already done.

Apart from humanism, he enjoyes music and playes a variety of instruments inc. guitar and piano. He also enjoys reading not all to serious books (like good thrillers and fantasy). 

Amund Bugge
Secretary European Working Group

Amund has worked with IHEYO for a long time. He chose to be a Humanist at the age of 13, as all children in Norway are required to chose a faith or belief. He is pationate about Humanist values and both campaigns and goes on Humanism camping trips. He lives with his long-term (also Humanist) partner in Norway, which means they spend most evenings watching the northan lights and running away from Polar bears. In the summer he tends to his vegitable patch.

Advisory board members

Gea Meijers
Advisory Board Member

Gea Meijers has been with IHEYO from the beginning. In 2002 she organized the first IHEYO conference after its latest rebirth. She has been the first IHEYO president, was IHEYO’s treasurer and at one point also worked for IHEYO and IHEU. She is currently finalizing the IHEYO book on teaching critical thinking from a humanist perspective. She currently lives in the South of the Netherlands as a single, is a feminist as well and enjoys walking in the nature with the family dog.

Silvana Uhlrich
Advisory Board Member

Silvana was invited as one participant to the first IHEYO session at the WHC in the Netherlands 2002. Impressed by all these young people actively involved in humanist work she took part in every IHEYO event since then. While observing the growing network and request of the current board she was helping to organize the IHEYO conference in 2005 in Marly-le-Roy, Paris. In the same year she was elected as 2nd Vize-president until 2008 as she applied to become the president of IHEYO. From 2008-2014 she was holding the position inside IHEYO next to work one year as communication officer. In 2014 she stepped back from her position, but will support the actual board with her knowledge and time.

Professionally Silvana hold a Master of Arts for theatre pedagogy, music and the german language. She is working as vocal coach in a music school, teaches students and children theatre methods and feels very comfortable as singer on stage herself.

She is married, has two girls aged 4 years and 4 months and is taking care of her 18 years old step-son. She lives with her family in Potsdam, Germany. 

To contact a boardmember, create the e-mail-adress according to the pattern: "first name.surname"@iheyo.org. E.g. nicola.jackson@iheyo.org. See also the contact page.