Moderators
Mr. Vassili Golikov, Moderator of Conference
Mr. Vassili Golikov has worked with SSCW (Sillamäe Society for Child Welfare www.sscw.ee) since 1995, coordinating many Youth and Children programs on children and human rights, youth empowerment, integration, democracy and intercultural dialogue, sustainable development, and advocacy of children and youth organizations, including policy-making in youth, education, and culture policies. His primary mission is to catalyzing children’s and young people’s potential to make a positive community change. He’s worked closely with various governmental and non-governmental organizations of Estonia and international organizations to support children’s well-being and youth – working on children’s rights and intercultural issues. He is constantly participating in main international events organized by the Council of Europe and European Commission as an expert. Vassili has a Master’s degree in Political Science and Bachelor’s in International Relations and has been working and studying in UK, Finland, and Germany. Currently, he works in Euroacademy as a lecturer in international relations, human rights, project management, international cooperation, and politics.
David Woollcombe, Peace Child International
David Woollcombe is an author, playwright, film-maker and acknowledged expert on the field of youth participation in governance. He wrote and directed numerous performances of Peace Child across Europe, North America, the former Soviet Union and Central America. His academic publications include, “The Role of Children in Governance” and “Youth-led Development – Harnessing the energy of youth to make poverty history.” A founder and currently the President of Peace child international, he has worked as a consultant for UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO and has published several publications for PCI and is the international director of World Youth Congress series. David led Peace Child International for 35 years as CEO, directing over 60 major productions and projects around the world. As President, and now as Chairman of the Board, he is intent to use his global contacts to ensure that the organisation moves to a new generation of leadership, equally committed to the central role that young people can play in our world.
Ambassador Hatem Atallah
Coming from a rich diplomatic background that encompassed over 35 years, Ambassador Atallah was the Tunisian Ambassador in several countries including the US, the UK, South Africa and Ethiopia, He was also the Permanent Representative of Tunisia to the Organization of American States, the African Union, the Economic Commission for Africa, UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), UN-Habitat, and the International Maritime Organization. He was appointed the Diplomatic Advisor to the Head of the Tunisian Government until February 2015. Ambassador Atallah participated in numerous summits, ministerial meetings and high level conferences of the African Union, the United Nations and the Union for the Mediterranean.
From March 2015 to December 2017 he served as Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Region. Ambassador Atallah serves as Vice Président of the Euro-Med University (EMUNI) in Slovenia and member of the Senate. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Gorée Institute in Sénégal and is a founding member of « AVASP » (Institute for Strategic Analysis and Prospective Studies – Tunis).
Keit Kasemets, European Commision
Eilie Lepik, Riigikantselei
Eili Lepik works as deputy strategy director at the Government Office of Estonia. Her main responsibility now is to lead the preparation process of the countries long term strategy “Estonia 2035”. Eili is also working with global sustainable development goals and Agenda 2030 coordination at the central government level. She has lead several sustainable development related projects, e.g. reform of Estonian Sustainable Development Commission, renewal of Estonian sustainable development indicators and compiling the Estonian review on implementation of 2030 Agenda.
Anneli Ohvril, Lets Do it World
Anneli Ohvril is an expert in social change management and circular economy, speaker, trainer, initiator of numerous social movements in Estonia ang globally.
Anneli Ohvril is the founder and CEO of Let’s Do It World, the international environmental organization that engages leaders and organizations around the globe. The biggest project World Cleanup Day engaged more than 50 million people from 180 countries to one-day cleanup action during the last three years.
Jane Oispuu, European Commision
Jane Õispuu is the Head of Political Team at the European Commission Representation in Tallinn. Main focus of her work lies on Commission’s priorities as defined by President Ursula von der Leyen for 2019-2024, notably climate change, energy, and migration. In her previous positions at the Commission, she was in charge of inter-institutional relations in the domain of EU external policies, briefings for President Juncker and multiannual financial framework. Jane Õispuu holds a PhD in political science from the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Ivo Krustok, Ministry for Environment of Estonia
Harrison Pollak, Environmental lawyer
Harrison Pollak is an environmental attorney who lives in Oakland, California, in the United States. Before retiring from state service in June 2021, Harrison spent 20 years as a Deputy Attorney General and Supervising Deputy Attorney General for the Environment Section, Office of the California Attorney General. His focus was on enforcing environmental laws that protect humans and the environment from the harmful effects of toxic chemicals, and on enforcing laws that require government entities to identify and mitigate significant adverse environmental impacts of projects – including the potential cumulative impacts on climate change – before approving them. Before practicing law, Harrison lived in Brazil, where he conducted research on sustainable palm heart management at the Institute of Humans and Environment in the Amazon (IMAZON), served as Academic Director for a College Semester Abroad program, and learned how to play guitar. Harrison received a JD from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, and a BA from Yale University.
Abigail Wordsworth, Civil Activists
Agnes Kuimet, AKÜ
Tomas Türk, Tallinn City Government
Vinod Tailor, Luton Sustainability Project
Vinod Tailor MBE is the former High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant. He has a business background and has worked in 32 countries. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and Chartered Institute of Securities. He arrived in Luton with his family in 1972 as refugees from Uganda and is tireless in his charitable work, dedicated to giving back to society, especially to numerous voluntary organizations in Bedfordshire.
Gonzalo Del Castillo, CeSUS/Club of Rome
At the international level, he was coordinator for Latin America of youth participation in the VI World Water Forum (Marseille, 2012). And in 2010, at the meeting of the World Food Security Committee (FAO-Rome), he was elected Youth Focal Point of Civil Society for Latin America. Gonzalo is a permanent contributor to the newspaper La Nación, and was co-host of a radio station on environmental issues. He has organized various national and international congresses and meetings.
Janne Rajala, Onrego Oy
Marten Kaevats, Riigikantselei
Janni Kaupilla, United Nations Associations
Natalie Samarasinghe, UN Association
David Wardrap, UNA-UK & Westminster
David Wardrop has worked with UNA-UK, UNESCO and UN processes for many years. He chairs the Westminster United Nations Association which organises several annual programmes supportive of the UN. He was a member of the Management Team of the online UN75 Festival hosted by UNA-LASER, UNA-UK and Peace Child Intl. in October 2021. He coordinates international support for the UN’s ongoing inquiry into the death of former UN S-G Dag Hammarskjold and until recently he chaired the International Friends of the Alexandria Library.
Jean Kostrzewski, London University
Jean Kostrzewski’s (French/Polish) academic background is a Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He specializes in the understanding of the various impediments to global peace by focusing on the study of International Security or Risk and Policy analysis. His main field of expertise is the examination of the greatest drivers of conflict such as international political competition, economics, identity or lack of peaceful intercultural dialogue. As a member of the operations team of the SCRAP (Strategic Concept for the Removal of Arms and Proliferation) project, he has experience working with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and advocates for the reframing of the debate concerning the strong correlation between peacebuilding operations and global disarmament. Furthermore, he actively participates in the campaigns and various projects of esteemed NGOs and charities such as UNICEF UK or DebateMate, defending the rights of the child and promoting social mobility.
Susan Lee
Susan is a student and democracy practitioner from Seoul, South Korea. In 2016 and 2017 she worked at We All Govern Lab, a Seoul-based democracy start-up where she translated and conducted research on civic participation and democratic innovation. Since then, she has been working in global deliberative governance with a focus on iterative pilot testing and youth activation. She is a member of Deliberativa, at which she co-founded the World Citizens’ Assembly initiative, and is part of the core delivery team at Global Assembly. Susan has published works such as “The Challenge of Global Deliberative Democracy” and spoke in a video explaining the Global Assembly for COP26 for the COP26 Climate Ambition Summit 2020. She is currently finishing her studies in Political Science and Religion at Amherst College.
Rich Willson, Global Assambley
Rich is a democratic renewal specialist. With 18 years hand-on experience designing and delivering participation processes, policy development and setting up and running new organisations. In 2004 Rich founded the charity Involve, which under his leadership became a leading centre for public participation research, innovation and policy-making. He has been an adviser for the OECD, WHO, UNDP, EU and many national and local governments. He has written over 100 policy reports, been a regular contributor to the Guardian, wrote the Anti Hero book, is a trustee of the Local Trust, a Clore Social Fellow and a co-director of the social impact lab OSCA. Rich has designed, delivered or commissioned well over 100 deliberative processes. From small community workshops to large national and international processes involving thousands of citizens. For institutions such as the UNFCCC, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (UK) and the Californian State. He has recently helped set-up two new ventures: Good Help on behalf of Nesta, the National Lottery and the Department of Culture Media and Sport (UK); the Funders Initiative for Civil Society supported by Open Society Foundation, Oak and Ford. He is a co-founder of the Global Citizens’ Assembly.
Steve Riffkins
Nikolai Tsveatkov, State Chancellery’ Bureau for reintegration politics
Works as deputy chief at State Chancellery’ Bureau for reintegration politics. His main responsibility is to lead the effective management for analyses and planification of the country long term strategy to solve transndniestrian conflict. In 2017-2020 Nikolay worked as senior consultant in the President Office of the Republic of Moldova. In 2019, he defended his doctoral dissertation (Doctor habilitat) on the topic of civil society in the Republic of Moldova. He is the author of 5 books and more than 50 scientific articles published in 7 countries.
Mahmoud Ezzat, Bibliotheca Alexandrina/LAS
He is Head of Center for Strategic Studies Working Group at Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He got his PhD in political science in 2017 from the Institute of Asian Studies and Researches in Egypt. In addition, his Master’s degree in political science in 2013 from the faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. And Bachelor’s degree in political science, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, in 2005. He is an Egyptian researcher and writer in the political, historical and cultural, media fields. His contributions have been published in several magazines and periodicals in Egypt, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Europe. He has been awarded the Egyptian state incentive award in social science “Media and Press branch” 2013, the international organization of African and Asian writers annual prize 2009 and Al- Kindy prize (Best website in the Arab world), Syria 2009. He’s responsible for the cultural exchange file at Central Projects and services sector and promoting the cultural cooperation between Bibliotheca Alexandrina and foreign organizations, institutions, and NGOs “Locally, regionally and internationally” Also was responsible for the Memory of Modern Egypt website, and for several documentation websites. Moreover, extremism confrontation program at Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He’s the main member of “Education without borders” project. He has been named as a general coordinator of the International Football Tournament for Media and Journalists.