Our staff and volunteers

Nepal Project Committee and Sub-Committee Members

Samar Badouin-Palestine, resides in Jerusalem where she manages Bread for the World Local Support Office in the Middle East. She has extensive experience in working with civil society, with emphasis on social development and mobilization through empowering, strengthening and supporting community based organizations, civil society organizations and NGOs. She is also a trainer in areas of project planning, management, fundraising and evaluation. 

Kalle Bergkvist-Sweden, studied in Uppsala and holds a Degree of Master in Peace and Conflict Studies. He was on the PBI-NEP team from September 2006-May 2007 and is a member of the Strategy Sub-committee since October 2007. He is interested in the interplay between armed conflict and Human Rights.

Núria del Pozo-Spain, joined the PC in November 2007. She has a degree in Law and a master in Communitarian Law and a diploma in European Studies and International Relations. Núria has worked as an In-house counsel in various companies and as a volunteer in different NGO's. Actually she is also a member of the board of PBI Catalonia regional group and a Spanish state representative as observer in the International Council of Peace Brigades International. 

Emma Jansen-The Netherlands, joined the PBI field team for the first time in August 2008 and worked in the Kathmandu office till September 2009. In February 2010 Emma returned to Nepal to join the PBI field team in the Gulariya office. Emma has a Masters degree in International Human Rights. After her graduation and before joining PBI she volunteered with Amnesty International and Refugee Aid in the Netherlands. In January 2010 Emma attended a course in Peace, Conflict and Development at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. 

Erika Jennerjahn-Meyer-Germany, joined PBI Nepal in January 2006 as a member of the Human Resources Subcommittee and later also as a member of the Project Committee. She worked with the German Development Service (DED) as a trainer and also served 6 years in Nepal as a country director for DED. She worked also two years as a programme director with KURVE Wustrow, a centre for education and non-violent action. Erika is now retired.

Krystal Mason-USA, joined the Human Resources Sub Committee in September 2009 after having served as field volunteer with PBI-Nepal from April 2008 to July 2009. Krystal is currently based in Philadelphia where she taught at William Penn Charter, a private Quaker school. In March 2010 she was asked to be a trainer for the PBI-Nepal new volunteer training in Spain. Krystal is now planning to move to Baltimore to pursue a Master of Science in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.

Christopher Shier-USA, joined PBI Nepal's strategy committee in mid-2007. He received a BA in Economics from Northwestern University and a MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford. Prior to his current position focusing on socio-political crisis in Southeast Asia, Christopher had worked in Nepal and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Kristin Cain – The Netherlands, joined the PBI field team in June 2010.  She has a Masters degree in Conflict Studies and Human Rights, with a focus on international humanitarian law in internal armed conflict.  Before completing her Masters degree she worked as a volunteer with the Dutch Refugee Council and the PBI Netherlands country group.

Katie Danko-USA, joined the PBI Nepal team in November 2009.  Katie has a background in grassroots community organizing around a variety of issues - she started her career organizing in low-income neighbourhoods in Cincinnati, Ohio around issues related to crime, drugs, and affordable housing.  From there, she took on a position with the Sierra Club, the largest and oldest environmental organization in the United States, where she ran a campaign to clean up the city's waterways.  Before starting with PBI this past November, Katie had been working with Oxfam America for the last five years, organizing on issues related to the agriculture trade policy and global climate change.

Neil Horning-USA, has been researching conflict in Nepal since 2003, and lived in the country on and off since 2005. He has interviewed leaders and combatants from the central committee to ground level of the Maoist Movement in both the course of the conflict and the current transition period. Before joining the PBI team in June 2010, Neil worked with the Conflict Study Center, a local think-tank, and Open Learning Exchange, a Nepali organization implementing the One Laptop Per Child Project. He holds a BA in international Relations from San Francisco State University.

Iona Liddell-Scotland, has spent the last 6 years studying and working on Himalayan human rights and refugee issues in India and the UK and is pleased to have made it to Nepal!  She has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology with South Asian Studies and a Masters in Social Anthropology of Development and has interned with Amnesty International Scotland and UNHCR Bangladesh. She joined the PBI team in July 2009 and feels privileged to be supporting local Human Rights Defenders in the current climate.

Daniel Quinlan-Australia, started volunteering for PBI Australia in 2007. He studied International Studies (BA) at RMIT University and UDLA in Mexico.  Before coming to Nepal he worked for a Melbourne based NGO that worked with Injecting Drug Users and the Homeless.

Jochen Riegg-Germany, joined the team in November 2009. He has a master's degree in Peace and Conflict studies with a focus on Transitional Justice in Nepal. Last year he worked for a national Human Rights Organisation in Kathmandu monitoring the pre- and post election period.

Elise Tillet-Dagousset-France, joined PBI in August 2008. Following completion of her Masters degree in International and Human Rights Law, Elise spent the last few years working as a Human Rights Officer for the Paris Bar Association and different Human Rights INGOs.

Jill Greene –Ireland, joined the team in June 2010. She spent three months in Nepal at the end of 2009 helping to design youth dialogue programmes in the Central Terai for the Kathmandu based Democratic Freedom and Human Rights Institute (DFHRI). Previous to this, she lived in the U.K for three years, first in London and then Bradford. In Bradford she completed a Masters in Conflict Resolution and then stayed in the area to work with refugees and asylum seekers and also on a community mediation project. 

Fredrik Heldal–Norway, joined the team in September 2009. He has a master’s degree in history, with focus on Cuban economical and political development after the Cold War. Before going to work for PBI Nepal he worked in the news section of a Norwegian TV channel. He also spent some months working for a local NGO in Buenos Aires, monitoring multi-national corporations.

Ellis Veen-The Netherlands, joined the PBI field team in July 2009. She has a two Bachelor degrees, one in Social Work and the second in Cultural Anthropology with focus on Multiculturalism and Ethnicity in Nepal.  As part of her Masters, also in Cultural Anthropology, she did a three month anthropological field research in Kathmandu on the Kashmiri community. During her field research she was able to witness the elections of April 2008 and felt privileged to witness such major changes in Nepali society. 

Raphael Aaron Vergin–Germany, joined the PBI Nepal project in October 2009. He obtained his master’s degree in Political Science and American studies, focusing on International Relations and Peace Studies. To write his master thesis, he conducted a field research in Senegal about conflict transformation in the Casamance conflict. Before joining PBI Nepal he worked for GTZ, South Asia division Cambodia and Laos. In the 6 months internship with GTZ, he mostly worked on issues related to the cooperation with the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and GTZ projects in Nepal, mainly dealing with transitional justice and conflict transformation.

Maria Westerlund-Sweden, joined the Gularya team in March 2010. Prior to joining PBI she worked many years crewing on ships. She also worked on integration and  has a BA in International Relations and Middle Eastern studies and specializes in self-determination issues. She has been an ecumenical accompanier with SEAPPI in Israel and Palestine and in 2007 she joined HODR in Peru after the earth quake doing disaster relief work. She has a longstanding interest in human rights work and feels privileged  to be part of PBI.