The current GEN Africa Council members were elected on the 25th of March 2021 by the General Assembly meeting held online on March 24 and 25 2021. The document equally highlights the roles they serve on the Council. The Council of 5 members (with possibility for 2 NextGEN representatives) is supported by 3 part time staff.
President
Hawa Altigani is a child rights professional from Sudan with seven years of international experience in child protection including emergency. She is the President of Global Ecovillage Network Africa (GEN Africa) and serves as Child Protection Emergency coordinator at Plan International Sudan. She is a well grounded emergency response manager with extensive experience in research, advocacy, child protection, human rights, management, coordination and income generation projects. She holds a Master degree in agriculture and published many scientific articles in botany. Hawa has worked in development sectors such as women empowerment, hunger and disease. Additionally, she served as Director of Youth Forum Organization and child protection and child right governance officer in Save the Children Sweden. She has established and is leading a Moringa group in Sudan and was the coordinator of livelihoods and Rural Industrial Development Project, collaboration between Moring group and UNIDO .
Vice President
Niveen Adel Morsy is an Egyptian architect. She holds a Techno MBA and Geographic Information systems diploma. Niveen is a co-founder of GEN Africa and currently its Vice President and GEN trustee. Niveen managed several national and regional projects in the field of cultural heritage and information technology. She also founded the solution library portal which collects solutions pertaining to sustainable development and derived from the cultural heritage of African countries. Niveen also contributed to the pan African ecovillage program. Niveen has participated in 2 ecovillage design education programs (EDE) in Senegal and Germany in addition to various international training and conferences and wrote various scientific papers in relevant fields mentioned above.
Treasurer
Ibou Ngom est un professionnel de l’éducation. Il est diplômé de l’université d’Etat d’Odessa en Ukraine où il a obtenu un Master en philologie slave ainsi qu’un titre de Traducteur – Interprète. Il est le Proviseur du Lycée de Bambey Sérère ou il a introduit le concept d’Éco-lycée. Il coordonne les activités du REDES dans la région de Diourbel, au Centre du Sénégal, ou plus d’une cinquantaine de villages sont engagés dans le processus de transformation en écovillages. En sa qualité de dirigeant du RDN (Réseau pour le Développement de Ngoye), il a participé au Premier Sommet Mondial des Ecovillages tenu à Dakar et à la 3e Conférence Panafricaine des Ecovillages a Techiman au Ghana. Dans son établissement, il initie les élèves à la pratique de l’agroécologie et de l’entrepreneuriat social afin de développer en eux une passion pour la préservation de l’environnement et des compétences en gestion de micro-projets verts. Ce concept commence à porter ses fruits et à germer dans d’autres établissements du Sénégal.
Other Members
Elisângela Rassul, 39 years old, Mozambican, is a visionary, natural leader and charismatic communicator who is passionate about conceiving and developing innovative strategies for the empowerment of communities, peoples and nations and for the exponential regenerative development of territories. She has a background in ecology from São Paulo State University (UNESP)- Brazil and postgraduate degrees in Project Management from High Management Institute- ISG (Mozambique), Territorial Branding from Coimbra Business School- CBSE/ISCAC (Portugal) and Sustainable Management from Porto Business School- Porto University (Portugal). She was Head of the Planning and Programs Department at the First Lady’s Office-Presidency of the Republic of Mozambique and a member of the advisory and supervisory board of Lurdes Mutola Foundation. She is the founder and CEO of the Catalyst for Sustainability – KOSMOZ, a social enterprise that aims to strengthen and accelerate the sustainability ecosystem in Africa. She is a member of the advisory board for Environment and Land of the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA), supporting the revision of policies and facilitating the public-private dialogue. She started her involvement with Ecovillage Movement about 20 years ago, attended the very first ecovillages training (EDE) in Brasil at Nazaré Uniluz, having been a member of ENA-Brazil (now Casa Latina). She is an ambassador for the Global Ecovillage Network and member of the board of the Pan-Africa Ecovillage Developing Program.
Luc Lutala Kyad’i (University Degree in International Relations) is a national of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the year 2000, Luc founded ESPOIR POUR TOUS, a Congolese Non-profit, where Luc has been working with war-turn communities. His engagement with different marginalized groups: street children, orphans, indigenous communities (Pygmies) in DR Congo and Central African Republic has left communities like the Mingadi community with greener forests, better housing facilities and improved environmental and social conditions to withstand the climate emergency. As a long time observer of the African Union, Luc Lutala joined other Civil Society leaders, politicians, rural and urban communities to advocate for the advancement of regenerative community policies at local and continental levels. Today, he is a certified Peace Mediator (Martine Libertino Switzerland), Ecovillage Design and BRIDGE International facilitator – all which have enabled him to run eight (08) Ecovillage Design training, empowering more than 120 change makers in the field of sustainability. As one of the Founding members and Executive of Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) DR Congo, Luc has been advocating for the support of the government of DR Congo in the transition of 45 communities to Ecovillages.
