Consisting of a dynamic and dedicated team of 9 young volunteers aged between 18-30 years old from across the Council of Europe Region, the Executive Board is the elected leadership of the IGLYO network.
Board Members are mandated for three years by the Members’ General Assembly to oversee the governance of the organisation, represent our Membership, and lead and contribute to the strategic direction of our network in collaboration with the Secretariat.
This year, IGLYO had a record number of young LGBTQI activists applying for the IGLYO Board, with a total of 13 candidates. During the AMC Brussels 2022, our Members:
These 7 Board Members joined remaining Board Members Natalia (she/they, Finland) and Ralu (he/they, Romania).
Learn more about our current Board Members below and feel free to give a warm welcome to the new ones!
Aida is a feminist-activist with 7 years of experience in non profit. She is currently advocating LBQ womxn’s* rights using grassroots community-based approaches focused on gender mainstreaming, art-activism, wellbeing and self-care. She is a team member of the Armenian LBQ womxn’s* organisation Queer Sista Platform, and a co-founder of “Girls Talk”, a young womxn’s* feminist initiative. She is experienced in working with adolescent girls, womxn* and youth. Aida believes in the power of feminist approach in tackling discrimination and gender-based violence. She is a photography lover, a sketchbooks collector, and has her own podcast “Loqsh” (from Armenian: “boredom”), where she creates episodes on daily, seemingly meaningless life events and feelings.
Ana João is a Portuguese activist from Porto. João started doing volunteer work in non-profit youth organisations in 2014, working in core projects and events, and over time moving towards an HR leadership role with a pan-european scope in an international student association. At the moment, João is also a Board Member at rede ex aequo, a Portuguese LGBTI youth NGO, supervising and developing core projects while managing internal and external HR. João currently focuses on development of the two ultraperiferic Portuguese regions of Madeira and Açores, while overseeing the local chapters and educational efforts at a national level.
Ósk is an Icelandic activist, peer educator, feminist and event facilitator. She has been at the forefront of several major NGOs in Iceland and specialises as an international networking officer. A dedicated student activist, she has collaborated with major stakeholders and The Icelandic Ministry of Education in secondary school education. Since her teen years, she has been an active volunteer in Icelandic society and organised various campaigns, protests and fundraisers for students, queer youth and asylum seekers. Ósk originally got into queer activism to improve rights and visibility of transgender youth, to support her younger sister who identified as transgender at a young age. Ósk herself identifies as a pansexual cis woman and currently sits on the board of Q, the queer Icelandic student association. Ósk’s favourite pastimes are working out, reading, embroidering and dismantling the patriarchy.
Miha has been actively involved for the past six years with the organisation ŠKUC, specifically with the subsection ŠKUC Magnus, one of the first non-profit organisations in Slovenia for the LGBT+ community. He started as a volunteer and in the years following he joined the team to be involved in other projects that are based on cultural and artistic expressions, health and advocacy, and community awareness. The main focus of his work is on culture, advocacy, and projects that help and enhance building safe and open community spaces for LGBT+ people. Miha is also an active Board and organising committee member of the oldest LGBT+ Film Festival in Europe. He focuses on creating different cultural platforms and projects for the LGBT+ community. Finally, Miha is an avid artist and sculpturer with works that focus on queer artistic expressions.
Natalia Kallio (she/they) is a human rights activist, poet and author. She is based in Helsinki, Finland but has been working for international youth organisations for the past 6 years as a trainer and advocate. She has delivered a range of educational and campaigning activities and events for youth organisations, supported by the European Commission. These included youth exchanges and long-term global projects about LGBTQI+ rights, feminism, sex education, peace and more. Natalia is driven by the value of human rights guiding her work and focus as a trainer, Board Member and author. Natalia is also a part of the International affairs committee of LGBTI Rights in Finland (SETA).
Ophélie is a French activist based in Brussels. She identifies as pansexual and was nominated by the Member Organisation Bi’cause. She works as a project coordinator to promote active political participation in Europe and beyond and is involved in various networks promoting democracy values and civic engagement, including the participation of youth in politics. She is also an active volunteer at GRiS (Groupe d’intervention scolaire), where she gives LGBTQI+ rights workshops based on personal testimony in schools across Belgium. As she grew up in the countryside, she wishes to bring more visibility of the youth LGBTQI+ community in rural areas, and in general she aims at creating stronger connections between the community and other overarching topics such as youth rights, citizenship and the rule of law.
Ralu Baciu is a non-binary transmasculine activist from Romania. He works for PRIDE Romania as project manager and community organiser. He has been an LGBTQ+ activist for five years, recently focusing on the trans, neurodivergent, and disability rights movement and community organising: from creating safe spaces for queer neurodivergent people and guiding trans people to their transition to advocating and campaigning for trans and neurodivergent rights and identities. Also, they have collaborated with many other Romanian LGBTQ+ and human rights organisations in creating better programmes, services, and educational resources for the national queer community. He is very passionate about trans rights and disability rights and believes that true equality and liberation can only be accomplished through intersectionality. Besides their activism, Ralu is an English teacher and loves writing poems in his free time.
Born in 1994 and coming from Piraeus, Greece, Spyros is a queer social scientist with a great passion for human rights. His work centres on gender and LGBTQI+ people, refugees and asylum seekers, children and youth, as well as education. He has worked in Colour Youth – Athens LGBTQ Youth Community as a Project Manager and Communications Officer for two European projects, one of them regarding safe and inclusive school environments for LGBTQI+ students, the other focused on the access of LGBTQI+ people in Greek public services and health services. He has also worked as educator in a training workshop on the needs of LGBTQI+ refugees for professionals working with displaced populations. Right now, he is working with refugees, coordinating and delivering soft skills trainings. Spyros loves reading books, academic theory, comics and graphic novels, he is an art enthusiast, thrilled by fashion (especially if the garment is shiny or iridescent), and an avid pun-maker.
Toryn Co-chaired the IGLYO Board from 2020 to 2022 and was re-elected for a 3-year mandate at our AMC Brussels 2022.
Stay tuned, Toryn’s short bio will be uploaded shortly!
