Overall responsibility for the work of DG REFORM, offering technical and financial support for reforms in Member States. Before being the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reform, Elisa Ferreira was the Vice-Governor of Portugal’s Central Bank and a Member of the European Parliament. During 1995-2022, Elisa Ferreira served as Minister for Planning (Spatial and Regional Development) and Minister for Environment to Portugal.
Giulia Bertezzolo
Head of Cyprus Settlement Support Unit
Giulia Bertezzolo is the Head of the Cyprus settlement support Unit in the European Commission. She joined the European Commission in 2011 and since worked on food safety, financial services and reforms. From 2020 to 2024 she was policy assistant of the Director-General of the Directorate General for reform support. Previously, she was senior attorney and worked at the academia. In 2018 she was appointed Secretary General of the Italian Financial Market Authority (Consob). She holds a PhD in administrative law from the Trento University School of Law and a post-doc from the New York University School of Law. She has published several articles on law journals and taught at the University of Trento and LUISS Guido Carli in Italy.
Faith Abiodun
Executive Director, UWC International
Faith Abiodun serves as Executive Director of the United World Colleges (UWC) International, a global
education movement comprising of schools, colleges, national committees and programmes operating in 157 countries.
With a successful career spanning education, social enterprise, non-profit management and journalism, he has held leadership positions at African Leadership Academy – a pan-African educational leadership organisation, Catalyst 2030 – a coalition of the world’s leading social enterprises working to accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Future Africa, a public sector leadership organization with a network of emerging leaders across more than 30 African countries. He began his professional career as a journalist with The Guardian in Nigeria.
Faith serves on the boards of three leadership organisations and has been recognised with an honorary doctorate degree from Macalester College, USA.
Kainat Riaz
Kainat Riaz, born 1997 in northern Pakistan, sees herself as an education advocate. One day, on her way to school along with her two friends Malala and Shazia, their school-van was attacked by the Taliban leaving three of them injured and fighting for their lives. This was the turning point in Kainat’s life, and she decided to seek education as a revenge to that attack. Owing to her passion for education even at the cost of her life, she got a scholarship to study at UWC Atlantic in the United Kingdom. Today, she is an advocate of girls’ education and education, and a co-founder and Director for girls’ education at ‘Beydaar Society’, which is an NGO working in Pakistan to help promote peace & harmony by using education as a tool. She is continuously promoting education & advocating for girls’ right to education in her hometown, across Pakistan and globally, and it is due to her efforts that her work has been recognized by several awards & medals. Some of her awards include a national award granted by the President of Pakistan, Tamgha e Shuja’at (National Medal of Bravery), Human Rights Defender Award, GG2 Award, Ladies Fund Awards, etc.
Christos Apostolidis
Student, UWC Adriatic
Christos Apostolidis is a second-year student at UWC Adriatic in Italy. He comes from Greece and is passionate about music, maths, literature, and arts and he plays the piano. He enjoys meeting new people, listening to their experiences, and learning from them. At the “United for Peace” youth leadership forum, he is keen on getting to know the delegates’ perspectives and trying to reach a middle ground.
Defne Oychoum
Student, UWC Adriatic
Defne Öyçüm is a student at UWC Adriatic as a part of the EU Scholarship Programme for Cypriot Youth at UWC, UWC’s partnership with the European Commission. Previously, she has led debate clubs and participated in summer peace camps focusing on the importance of sustainable peace. She is the co-founder of a summer camp called ‘Building Bridges Between Cypriot Youth’ this year funded by UWC international’s Go Make A Difference competition. She is excited to learn and listen at the “United for Peace” youth leadership forum.
Elissavet Karamichael
Global Coordinator for the Global Secondary Diploma, Amala
Elissavet is Amala’s Global Coordinator for the Global Secondary Diploma, the first internationally accredited secondary level programme designed with and for refugee youth. She is an alumna of UWC Mostar (2012-2014) and has studied Politics and Education in the Netherlands, Argentina and the UK. She has previously worked in peace education in Cyprus and refugee education in Greece and the UK.
Katharina Mabiala
Student, UWC Maastricht
Katharina Mabiala is a student at UWC Maastricht and is part of the graduating class of 2025. Because of her enthusiasm for the UWC movement, Katharina appreciates the incredibly enriching opportunities her school offers. At the "United for Peace" youth leadership forum, she looks forward to meeting more people who are just as passionate as she is about creating a more peaceful future.
Lambros Asvestas
Youth worker, Co-founder HADE
Lambros graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in Economics in 2020. He is a self-employed Economics teacher and Youth Worker. He has been teaching Economics to teenagers for the last 4 years, and has been engaged in youth work both professionally and voluntarily. He is a co-founder and active member of HADE. and organized numerous inclusive community meetings and interactive workshops around Cyprus. Believing in the power of language, he supported Hade to coordinate volunteers to teach Greek and Turkish for free, both Hybrid and in person. Lambros has experience in facilitating workshops for teenagers and young adults to promote dialogue with various NGOs such as the AHDR, UWC, CFP and for the Council of Europe in the summer of 2023 and 2024 at the Youth Peace Camp.
Nikolina Gvozdenovic
Student, UWC Adriatic
Nikolina Gvozdenović, coming from Montenegro, is a second year at UWC Adriatic. She enjoys science and has thus attended different schools and camps, ranging from ecology, engineering, bioinformatics, all the way to physics and maths, which are her favourites. Nikolina has volunteered in many organisations, while she is the proudest of her work in NGO “Klupko”, where she collaborated on a project called “Luggage of psych-tools” meant to assist the youth in the period of adolescence, as well as of coordinating a municipality team within an NGO for youth activists of Montenegro. She is truly looking forward to learning about other UWC experiences at the forum and cannot wait to share her own!
Dr. Pilvi Torsti
Director, European Training Foundation; Co-founder, UWC Mostar.
(UWC Adriatic, 1993-1995)
Dr. Pilvi Torsti, is the Director of the European Training Foundation. She served as a State
Secretary in three ministries in Finland: the Ministry of Education and Culture 2013-2015 and
Ministry of Employment and Economic Affairs & Ministry of Transport and Communications
2019-2023. From 2017 to 2019, Pilvi Torsti was an MP and a member of the education and
future committees of the Finnish parliament. She holds a PhD in social sciences from the
University of Helsinki, and is also the co-founder of United World College in Mostar, Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Also, she founded HEI Schools, an education company co-owned by the
University of Helsinki where she has been an adjunct professor since 2012 and was
nominated as the adjunct professor of the year in 2020. Pilvi is UWC graduate (1995) and
Eisenhower Fellow (2013). She is married with three children. www.pilvitorsti.com
Therese Oettl
Social Pedagogue and Outdoor Coordinator, UWC Robert Bosch College
Therese Oettl is working at RBC Robert Bosch College in Freiburg. She is delighted to have found her perfect workplace: creating affordances in the outdoors for young adults. She has been educated in pedagogy and physical education in Bavaria, Germany, where she was raised. She then enjoyed studying "Transcultural European Outdoor Studies" in an international group in three countries: the UK, Norway and Germany. This program is what she calls her "UWC" experience. At the "United for Peace" youth leadership forum, she is excited to have conversations about how activities in nature can support a peace-building process.
Vivian Shaima
Facilitator, Amala
Vivian is an alumna of the Amala Global Secondary Diploma, the first internationally accredited secondary level programme designed with and for refugee youth. Since completing the programme, she has been working as an educator at Amala, facilitating transformative learning for displaced youth in Jordan. She is also a Refugee Rights Advocate and Social Worker. Her lived experience as a refugee fuels her dedication to advocating for marginalized communities. She is also a member of the Canadian Refugee Education Council, where she provides strategic advice and engages with global decision-makers and civil society organizations to improve access to quality education for refugees globally.
