Our team
We are an international team who came together from all parts of the world to nurture our passion for making a positive change in our society. At NaturKultur e.V., we are co-creating a lifelong learning environment with and for everybody involved. We like working together and love what we do, which, with the common values that we share, makes it a perfect mix.
We are the people behind NaturKultur e.V.:
Darko Mitevski
Darko is the president of NaturKultur e.V. and the main person responsible for KulturHaus. At the age of 19, he started doing youth projects in AIESEC. Since then, he has realised hundreds of successful youth projects in Europe and Africa. He is an organisational developer in charge of development of both NaturKultur e.V. and KulturHaus, managing the teams, responsible for key projects and activities and relations with external partners and donors. In the past, he has been a University assistant and lecturer in Strategic Management and Leadership, a consultant for development of small and medium enterprises in Europe and Africa, and an entrepreneur. His focus is on the strategy and development of organisations, training and development of leaders and trainers, and the creation of systems that will bring sustainability to the organisations that are organising youth and educational programs in Europe.
Žiga Magjar
Žiga Magjar, originally from Slovenia, is passionate about nature and the NGO sector. After transitioning from engineering to online marketing and sales, he has been fully dedicated to co-creating NaturKultur’s story in Bremen, Germany since 2018. Žiga hosts diverse groups at the organization’s youth house, mentors and guides ESC volunteers, coordinates logistics teams, and leads kitchen teams during NaturKultur projects. His commitment to lifelong learning and his love for hosting people fuel his exploration of non-formal education, extending beyond traditional environments with initiatives like Kitchen Youth Work.
Anja Mrkobrada
Anja is our sending coordinator. She is in charge of sending (young) people on different international projects – Erasmus+ youth exchanges and training courses, as well as ESC programmes. She comes from Serbia, where she finished her master’s degree in Educational Psychology while getting experience in youth work, as well as project management. She did her ESC in 2022/23 in NaturKultur e.V. as a local connections volunteer. In her free time she likes to play piano, volleyball, ride a bike, do yoga, read, travel and philosophize.
Aleksandar Čičković
Aleksandar Čičković is working as a trainer and coordinating Erasmus+ KA1 and KA2 projects in NaturKultur. He has been actively doing youth work since 2013 and has since organized and worked as a trainer on more than 100 projects in Erasmus+/Youth in Action. His main focus of work is on youth activism, intercultural learning and mental and physical wellbeing of youth workers and young people.
Lina Schnabel
Lina is working as coordinator for ESC hosting projects with us in Bremen and coordinates our local project StudyFriends. Above that she is part of the pool of TEC Trainers in our organisation. She joined our team in August 2021. Lina has a master’s degree in education, began working in open youth work during her studies and has been working in that field since 2013. In 2017, she did her EVS in a youth organisation in Turkey. Her work focuses on vocational orientation, volunteering and civic engagement. She has worked as project coordinator and facilitator on several Erasmus+ youth exchange and TEC Trainings. In 2020, she was also involved in three digital international encounters, where she worked a lot in the field of media education and received further training in digital education.
Andre Figueiredo Garcia
Andre is a project manager and trainer responsible for the development, implementation, and coordination of educational seminars – including over 20 Erasmus+ mobilities. He is the TEC coordinator of the organisation and the LMS content administrator. As an educator, he applies non-formal education and experiential learning cycle principles.
Branimir Suk
Branimir is a trainer, being a great supporter on different projects in different ways, from writing, facilitation and training, to coordination and logistics. He co-founded the NGO Ocean Znanja in Croatia in early 2014 and has been working on youth mobility projects since then, writing applications and delivering workshops. Branimir started working with NaturKultur e.V. in 2016 as logistical support and cook on projects. He has a degree in German and Ukranian language studies and in Ethnology and Cultural anthropology from the Faculty of Humanities and social sciences of the University of Zagreb.
Cecilia Marshal
Cecilia works with migrants and refugees, primarily youth, in theatre and provides creative performance art as a mechanism for voice, empowerment, and community building. Cecelia graduated with both a journalism and international studies degree from the University of Arizona and moved to Cambodia in 2013, where she worked as a reporter for three years before beginning her master’s degree in Migration and Intercultural Relations. In her masters, she specialised in Applied Theatre with youth refugees and has given talks on the subject at various conferences around Europe. Her passion for theatre has taken her around the world, where she has worked with various groups in theatre, film, and performance as well as directed productions in schools and theatre groups.
Hans-Gerd Hauber
Hans-Gerd has a central role in the management of KulturHaus. His responsibilities vary from taking care of the groups in KulturHaus, the maintenance of the house, and external communication with customers. Hans-Gerd has a great deal of life experience ranging from working for an insurance company to co-running a nursing home, and is full of passion for life and passing it on to the younger generation. He loves motorbikes and dreams about living in Florida.
Juraj Tomljanović
Juraj is currently working as part of our logistics team, helping to bring the best possible balanced culinary experience for our participants and the team during our Youth Exchanges and Training Courses. His biggest passions are cooking, traveling and photography, which he loves to share with everybody. He is currently running his own environmental Solidarity Project with his group in Zagreb, Croatia.
Andrei Matalyha
Andrei is currently responsible for creating photo and video content for NaturKultur e.V., such as documentaries, tutorials, and project after-movies. Andrei graduated from the Baltic Film School and worked in professional film sets in a variety of commercials and corporate videos. He excels at directing, camera work and video editing.
Cati Sanso
Cati is one of the ESC volunteers working in the field of social media content creation and communication. Her main role is to create and share engaging content across NaturKultur’s platforms, helping to spread the spirit and values of the organization. She holds a double degree in Business and Tourism and has previous experience in hotel management. Motivated by a desire to grow both personally and professionally, she began a new chapter focused on cultural exchange and sustainability — joining various Work & Travel projects across Europe. Cati is passionate about learning new languages and connecting with people from different backgrounds. In her free time, she enjoys reading, going on hiking adventures, and practicing paddle surfing.
Slobodan Djurović
Slobodan is working as a facilitator on some of NaturKultur´s projects that are closely connected to European politics. He is also supporting remotely with other types of project and organisational work. He co-founded an NGO in Montenegro in 2019 called Forum for Individual Transformation, which is focused on the empowerment of individuals. Slobodan has been involved with NaturKultur e.V. already since 2016 as the organisation’s first Erasmus+ intern. He has a degree in Administration and European Studies and he teaches German language. He is passionate about astrology.
Lili Trinh
Lili is one of the ESC volunteers responsible for social media management. Her job is to create social media content and visible strategy for online platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. She holds a degree in Marketing & Branding and has volunteer experience in various organizations. She loves to travel, currently working to improve her German, by the end of the program she wants to reach C1 level. In her free time, she enjoys watching movies on a big screen with the help of a projector, painting, working out, and spending time with friends.
Aleksandar Dimovski
Aleksandar is our webmaster and IT administrator, taking care of the platforms that we manage and the safety our computer network. He has developed and is maintaining our websites of NaturKultur, Train the trainers – It’s up to me, KulturHaus and the Trainers Library. Aleksandar has many years of experience in the IT sector working for variety of companies in many different countries. He specialises in web design and development, visual design, user experience (UX), user interface (UI) and branding.
Samuel Ponce
Samuel is our local youth work coordinator. He is working close to youth in Bremen, supporting them in creating and executing local actions to address various topics including EU youth policy, Migration and Refuge. He received a B.A. in Literature with a concentration in Spanish and Latin America from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2018, he received a M.A. in Intercultural Conflict Management from Alice Salomon Hochschule in Berlin, Germany. Since then, he has been working in non-formal education with local NGOs facilitating activities, workshops, trainings, and Erasmus+ funded projects on the topics of identity and migration, creative writing, combating discrimination, and storytelling. Samuel has a passion for cooking, listening to music, and traveling to appreciate the cultural diversity of the world.