Jennifer Gaspar

Before founding Araminta, Jennifer was the Director for special programs for the CEELI Institute in Prague, where she managed a portfolio of programs focused on human rights and security including programs on the independence of defense attorneys, an emergency support and relocation program for activists and human rights defenders, and developing policy initiatives to benefit international human rights defenders. Her career includes 20 years of experience in NGO management, philanthropic advising, and organizational strategy, including 20 years working in Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union. She was a long-term consultant to the Oak Foundation’s International Human Rights Programme and is the former Director for the Fund for International Nonprofit Development (US). Jennifer is on the Board of PEP Watch (Prague), an advisory board member for Upsala Circus (St. Petersburg, Russia and Zeitz, Germany), and Board President for the Centre for International Protection (Strasbourg). Jennifer was a Fulbright Fellow in Hungary and is a human rights laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group. She holds a degree in international affairs from George Washington University (Washington, DC) and a Masters in Organisational Leadership from the University of San Francisco where she also pursued her doctoral studies. Jennifer speaks English, Russian, German, and Spanish.

Vanessa Kogan

Vanessa Kogan has 20 years’ experience in international human rights litigation and advocacy as well as NGO development. Prior to joining Araminta, Vanessa served for 13 years as Executive Director of Stichting Justice Initiative (SJI), a strategic litigation NGO focused on protecting marginalized groups in the former Soviet Union, in particular victims of armed conflict, ethnic and religious minorities, women, and children. At SJI Vanessa assisted hundreds of victims of human rights violations to seek justice at the European Court of Human Rights and other international human rights bodies, and oversaw all aspects of the organization’s development and strategy. In 2015-2016, she was a guest contributor to the online curriculum at the University of York on leading and managing effective human rights organizations. Before joining SJI, Vanessa worked at several refugee rights organizations in France, assisting with legal interventions on behalf of asylum seekers and contributing to research on non-communitarian municipal voting rights. She also worked in the Legal and Policy Office of Human Rights Watch in New York. Vanessa studied comparative literature and society at Columbia University and has a law degree from Cambridge University. She speaks English, Russian, French and German.

Oksana Shchur

Oksana has worked as a curator and project manager for many years – she is a connector of people and ideas.  She curated the main program of the Kyiv Book Arsenal festival, one of the biggest book events in Ukraine, and realized many international projects connected with Ukrainian art and culture, including for festivals in the UK and EU. As a publicist, her many essays, reviews and interviews with Ukrainian media have been translated into Polish, Czech, German and English. Now, literature is her hobby, and she believes that culture matters. At Araminta, Oksana manages a hub

for activists and human rights defenders from Ukraine, which aims to increase their professional capacity as well as networking and community-building.

She speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English, and German.

Evgeny Shtorn

Evgeny manages Araminta’s emergency funds for human rights defenders from Eastern Europe and Central Asia and coordinates international advocacy projects aimed at increasing mobility and protection for HRDs from all over the globe. Evgeny also represents Araminta on the members’ committee in the EUTRP (European Union Temporary Relocation Platform) – a network of 80+ NGOs which provide temporary relocation of HRDs. Prior to Araminta, Evgeny worked as a Social and Cultural Diversity Consultant collaborating with various institutions including the Irish Center for Human Rights (NUI Galway), the Equality Fund at Rethink Ireland, and the National Gallery of Ireland. Overall, Evgeny has been involved in human rights and LGBT advocacy for two decades. After having to flee persecution in Russia, he co-founded Queer Diaspora Ireland, a refugee-led initiative that supports LGBTIQ+ people in need of international protection in Ireland. For these efforts he was named GALA’s Person of the Year for 2020 by the National LGBT Federation of Ireland (NXF). Currently he is also a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki where he writes about violence against LGBTIQ+ people in Russia. Evgeny’s working languages are Russian, English and Spanish.

Nathalie Losekoot

Nathalie has worked for over 20 years in the human rights field, with a focus on freedom of expression and the Eurasia region, including through grant-making, international advocacy and organizational management. Prior to joining Araminta, Nathalie supported organizations working on human rights advocacy, gender equality and climate justice including in closed civil societies in the Eurasia region, through her position as Program Officer with the Europe and Central Asia Program of Open Society Foundations. She is a long-term trustee for a small UK-based NGO, Reach all Women in War (RAW), which annually presents the Anna Politkovskaya Award to a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone who, like Anna, stands up for the victims of conflict, often at great personal risk. Nathalie has previously held positions at the Sigrid Rausing Trust, Article 19, where she used her interest and experience from working at the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), a move she made after she worked for Amnesty International as campaigner on Eastern Europe. Nathalie has a master’s degree in Russian Studies from the University of Leiden and European Environmental Management from the University of Amsterdam. She speaks Dutch, (Swiss) German, English, Russian and French and is based in London.

Mikhail Tumasov

Mikhail is a human rights activist and civil society manager. He studied theology and pedagogy before working in the publishing industry as a commercial and logistical manager, and later became involved in fundraising and management for one of Russia’s largest LGBTQ+ NGOs in St. Petersburg. Mikhail was later elected chairman of the Russian LGBT Network, and has worked as an advisor and coordinator on global projects for human rights defenders and on combatting discrimination. In 2018-2019, Mikhail was a fellow at King’s College in London researching comparative LGBT history, and was a volunteer for Amnesty International’s Russia and Eurasia Regional Office (London Secretariat). In 2023 he was nominated to the Board of the German LGBT organization LSVD ( Der Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland). Mikhail speaks Russian, English, Polish, and German.

Andrea Piehler

Andrea has experience working as a finance manager for more than 10 years. She studied business administration and Scandinavian studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin before she joined the finance department of Europe’s largest and most successful start-up incubator. Building on this knowledge, Andrea set up the finance department of various start-ups in the sustainability sector in the following years. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Andrea has been working for a project of the Flüchtlingshilfe Babelsberg e.V. (Refugee Aid Babelsberg). This organization buys urgently needed medical supplies , funded by donations, and transports them to Ukraine where they are made available to first responders. She also supported joint projects with Konvoi Drushba and Humanitarian Aid Potsdam.

Andrea speaks German, English and Swedish.

Kateryna Chernii

Kateryna is a doctoral candidate at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam. Her doctoral thesis investigates the transformation of Ukrainian football and its elites after the collapse of the Soviet Union. She holds an MA in History and 20th-century Politics from the University of Jena (Germany) and was the recipient of the International Parliamentary Scholarship of the German Bundestag, and interned at the German Football Association. Kateryna speaks Ukrainian, German, Russian, English and basic Spanish.

Olesia Vynogradska

Olesia Vynogradska moved to Berlin in March 2022. Prior to that she was employed as a corporate lawyer in Kyiv, Ukraine. She holds her MA in Law from the Kyiv Shevchenko University. Her work with the Ukrainian Activist Nest project is her first job in Germany. Olesia speaks Ukrainian, Russian and German.

Alexandra Cherkasenko

With a career spanning over 15 years as a human rights lawyer and advocate, Alexandra brings a wealth of expertise to her role. Based in Berlin, she has worked at the Open Society Foundations, where her focus encompassed grantmaking and capacity building within the Eurasia region. Her leadership extended to initiatives addressing human rights, the protection of rights activists, challenges of digital authoritarianism, and programming around closed societies. Before that, Alexandra served at the Open Society Justice Initiative in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In this capacity, she specialized in utilizing legal strategies to combat torture in Central Asia. Her responsibilities included strategic litigation at the national level, international advocacy, the development and submission of complaints to UN Treaty Bodies and UN Special Procedures, and litigation for the implementation of decisions issued by UN Treaty Bodies at the local level. Alexandra was part of several inter-ministerial working groups and contributed by providing regional and international experience. In addition to her work in these organizations, Alexandra has worked for the Danish Refugee Council on matters related to the right to adequate housing and has also shared her expertise as a lecturer at the American University of Central Asia. She speaks English, Russian and German.