mother nature's team
Eight wonderful ladies from four European organizations.
Ági Berecz
Agi has been working in environmental education since 2004, she has mainly worked in the fields of youth work and adult learning for sustainability. Being inspired by eco psychology, deep ecology and the path of yoga her interest has been shifting from the outer to the inner dimensions of personal transformation. The immersion to motherhood made her conscious about how becoming a mother and raising up children are main sources of connectedness to womanhood, and to our earthy Mother as a way of empowerment and strengthening of our dedication. She lives in a village in Hungary, teaches yoga, studies integral psychology, coordinates the international "Mother Nature" project and above all she is a mother of two young girls. Within the project she is mainly dedicated to calling together strong support groups for mothers.
Learn more on https://anyautja.hu/mother-nature-foldanyak/
Eszter László
Eszti joined the project team as a designer and creative artist. She is the responsible for designing the Visual Aid card deck and she helps with the branding and visuals of the project also. She is a member of the Color-Space Association of Pécs and with Krisztina lead workshops, trainings and long time projects in the field of youth, creativity, change, and empowering women. The Mural Moral Method is a community art method and in the last years she worked with this complex creative tool with disadvantaged peoples, groups of women, professionals and young peoples. She is experted in artistic and social projects, Erasmus+ and development processes and local community developing processes in Hungary and in the international field as well (EducArt - Spain, Creativity and Change - Ireland, Migration trhough the lens of gender and arts - Chech, Platform Art - Participatory Art Based Project - Hungary, Southern Transdanubia Operational Program//informal workshops - Hungary, and in other EU projects and national programs as projectmanager.) She is interested in creating with nature and natural paint, land art, ecological thinking, ecotherapy with art tools and women circles.
Looby Macnamara
Looby Macnamara is mother, author, facilitator, designer, gardener and song leader. She is author of Cultural Emergence, People and Permaculture, 7 Ways to Think Differently and Strands of Infinity.
People and Permaculture Is the first book globally to translate the use of permaculture principles and design for people based systems. She is creator of the Design Web, a holistic design framework that has been used thousands of times globally for all sorts of personal and social designs.
She lives on a 20 acre smallholding in Herefordshire, where she runs an education and demonstration centre - Applewood Permaculture Centre. She is a mother of 2 wonderful daughters aged 14 and 22. Looby has co-developed the Cultural Emergence toolkit with Jon Young to support personal and global shifts towards a regenerative culture.
Learn more on www.cultural-emergence.com and
www.LoobyMacnamara.com
Valentina Cifarelli
Valentina, dynamic doer and passionate visionary. In 2005 she started her journey designing, managing and facilitating international projects for young adults. Since then, she is researching and developing ways to support and guide people "in transition" to become aware of their talents and potentials so able to take part authentically and freely in a world rich of challenges and opportunities. To coach and empower people she loves to use non formal education for mutual and dynamic learning and permaculture to grow social, environmental and economic resilience. After several working experiences in different contexts such as in private and public sectors, since 2014 she is the captain of her own adventure, leading and working for Paradiso Ritrovato, the organisation she co-founded. She is a mother living with her precious family in a little community in the hills of Romagna, in Italy. Here she takes care of bees, plants and people experiencing the enriching and challenging life of an intentional community with other people.
Learn more on paradisoritorvato.org
Sara Galeotti
Sara is a facilitator, a graphic designer and a graphic facilitator. She has been designing Mother Nature visual identity with love and care. She works and lives at Casa del cuculo, a community of three families based on the lovely hills of Emilia Romagna in Italy. As a facilitator and a trainer, she is engaged in different project related to community developing, capacity building and vocational education. She loves travelling, baking vegan desserts, and drawing with her daughter.
Learn more on www.casadelcuculo.org
Lara Kastelic
Lara is curious and passionate about sustainable lifestyle that brings together ecological and social aspects. After finishing the studies of biology she spent a year in an ecovillage in Germany, immersing herself into a living based on the values of Earth Care and People Care. Since 2014 she is back in Slovenia, engaged with several projects about permaculture and alternative education. She is working with children, youth and adults. She joined this project as she felt this will be an amazing learning journey that can support her in her own relationship with motherhood.
Learn more on www.preplet.org
Jana Lemke
Jana is an author, a professionally trained Zen Yoga teacher, psychologist and systemic therapist in training with an emphasis on mindfulness approaches. She is also a curious mother. Because of that (but not only!) her passion lies in working with women in times of transition, particularly mothers. Jana is a trained process facilitator in wild nature and has facilitated and accompanied several programmes for young adults, which included 24-hour solos in the wild as well as a 3-day solo, the so-called vision quest in the wilderness. Based on her personal experience she decided to research and write a PhD about this nature-based practice. In 2018 it was published as a book. For Jana the Mother Nature Project is an exciting and unique opportunity to weave together those strands she personally and professionally feels very deeply about: working with women, rites of passage, process work, creativity and the more-than-human world.
Learn more about Jana and her offerings www.therapie-potsdam-west.de/
Learn more about her book here:
www.sidestone.com/books/exploring-human-nature
Hattie Duke - UK Team joined November 2024
Hattie is is a Nature Based Facilitator, mother of twin boys, with skills in Biographical Counselling. She has over 20 years experience as a Forest School Leader, a Waldorf Teacher and mentor for teenage girls. She also runs a monthly Mother Nature Circle in her shared woodland in Herefordshire. You can find out more about Hattie and her work here
Emma Gorbutt
Emma has had a varied career working for organisations supporting and creating community projects working for positive social and environmental change in the UK, including the Permaculture Association, a Women’s Centre and delivering Children and Young People's activities for borough councils. Since 2011 she has been living and working at Earthworm Housing Co-op, Herefordshire UK helping to develop their housing and land to be more environmentally sustainable where she also began her exciting mothering journey. In 2018 she joined Looby Macnamara working for Applewood Permaculture Centre. In her spare time Emma volunteers widely in her village , is on a learning journey of Cultural Emergence and is nourished by gardening, cooking vegan food and nature connection practices All these threads both manifest and feed Emma's continuing passion for creating community resilience to climate change and social inequality and bringing about positive social change
ORGANIZATIONS
Mother Nature is a partnership between seven organizations, bringing in different expertises related to nature based methodologies, counseling, community work and permaculture.
PANDORA ASSOCIATION - HUNGARY
Pandora Association was founded in 2012 and is based in Budapest, Hungary. Its aim is is to transmit knowledge and practical alternatives on fields of living in harmony with nature, active citizenship and community building for a sustainable world by promoting the worldview and philosophy as well as applying the methodology of deep ecology. Pandora disseminates the approach of deep ecology, voluntary simplicity and permaculture. It creates time and space for collective learning and experience, and develops a global vision that promotes conscious and harmonious co-existence with nature. Learning is a holistic process that takes the trinity of body, mind and soul into account, it respects and pays attention to all the participants and the community. Pandora is the leading organization of Mother Nature's strategic partnership. Ági Berecz and Emese Dömösi are currently part of the Mother Nature's researchers team.
PARADISO RITROVATO - ITALY
Paradiso Ritrovato (Regained Paradise) is a non profit organisation, based in Italy and founded in 2012 by four women that have been studying and researching for years in Italy and abroad on the theme of sustainability within education. Our mission is to spread knowledge and practical alternatives in the two main fields which are education for sustainability and finding vocation.
Valentina Cifarelli e Roberto Cardinale are currently part of the Mother Nature's researchers team.
PREPLET - SLOVENIA
Ecological, Social and Cultural Association for Creative Community, is a NGO from the town Grosuplje in Slovenia. A group of women from local environment has been working together since 2007 with the general objective of establishing opportunities for children and youthto find their own creative expression. Our work is based on the values of ecological sustainability and social inclusion. We engage with young people to organise activities for children in local area. Our activities are also aimed at Roma children and we are collaborating with young Roma people.
Lara Kastelic is currently part of the Mother Nature's researchers team.
CASA DEL CUCULO - ITALY
Casa del cuculo is a cooperative based in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, founded in 2010 by four people who have been researching and experimenting together on the theme of community building and social research through non-formal methods. Casa del cuculo’s mission is to tailor-work cultural projects, products and processes aimed at producing social and cultural innovation and urban regeneration through the following methodologies: visual, performing and public arts, facilitation, community building, research, graphic design and data visualization, advising and training.
Sara Galeotti is currently part of the Mother Nature's researchers team.
PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION UK - UNITED KINGDOM
PAB support its members and others in the permaculture network to design thriving communities across Britain by applying permaculture ethics and principles, and to contribute to permaculture worldwide. Using permaculture design empowers people to make the right choices for a sustainable future. By putting ethics first and using natural systems as a model, there are simple and innovative ways to live fairly and sustainably now and in the future.
Looby Macnamara is currently part of the Mother Nature's researchers team.