Meet The Team
Christin Lidzba
Christin has master’s degrees in International Social Pedagogy & Social Science as well as Gender and Development. She has worked for 20 years as an Expert in International Development, Policymaking in Human Rights & Women’s Rights in South Asia, West & East Africa as well as the Caribbean. She has worked with several NGOs and Government Agencies and UNICEF in leadership & advisory positions. Among other roles, she has advised Education Ministries on educational reform and worked alongside teachers on curriculum development, trained teachers, and promoted youth and girl’s empowerment.
During her work she applied tools such as Service Design and Human Centered Design as taught by OpenIDEO. After leaving her international career 2 years ago, she has collaborated and worked with a Berlin Based Innovation Agency (J2C/ Journey2Creation GmbH) with a focus on Leadership Development, Female Leadership and Entrepreneurial Mindset Development. As a resident of the South West Algarve by choice Christin has been working for the last 3 years on promoting Social Innovation and Start-up Ecosystem with J2C, the Câmara Municipal Lagos and WithCompany in Lisbon. She is driven to promote youth participation and sustainable economic alternatives in the Region of the South West Algarve.
Malu Landaberea
Malu is a 23-year-old entrepreneur with studies in LEINN (Leadership of Entrepreneurship and Innovation) where she specializes in social innovation and transformation. She has participated in several programs on service design, team development, design thinking, start-up accelerators and social innovation.
In 2018, she attended and participated in Koopfabrika, an annual co-operative social entrepreneurship training program for the development of professional projects and socio-economic initiatives. Herefor, she developed the BATURA project, which currently collaborates with universities, local institutions and local administration. She has also created the EUSKALAKARIAK project, which aims to help young people with disabilities acquire vocational skills to enter the job market. She is currently collaborating with psychologists and educators to innovate the user experience.
In the last year, she has been developing her degree thesis with the innovation agency J2C, where she focused on analyzing and developing the social impact of the company and its projects. During this period, she participated in a project to develop social innovation and a local ecosystem in the Western Algarve.
Chloe Rutherford
Chloe is an experienced holistic therapist and presence mentor of almost 20 years, as well as a mother of 3 spirited and engaged children. She is deeply passionate about reform in education and has been involved in projects previously that look at different approaches to learning and community. She brings with her a wealth of experience in what she has seen work and also what hasn’t!!
She has particular interest in creating and holding safe spaces where children and adults feel nurtured and valued and where mental health is a top priority. She also brings with her new approaches to parenting with regenerative tools that allow parents to support their child to feel belonging and significance - both key factors in a child’s ability to develop healthy autonomy and a full sense of self worth. These learnings will be shared and available to the community in different forms.
She had been very interested in the Lumiar Methodology when working with a school previously but had moved to the Algarve a year ago for a different lifestyle and to be close to the sea. She was thrilled when the Nautiluz team turned up on her doorstep. Revitalised by the incredibly diverse and experienced team, she joined in November 2019 and is committed to supporting this incredible vision to unfold in both a natural and focused way.
Sónia Carvalho
Sónia has a degree in Applied Mathematics, Educational Branch. She has worked in the Portuguese Public School System for 21 years as a teacher in the local area. In recent years, she has been supporting young people who did not fit into the schooling system well, believing that each child is an undiscovered potential.
She is passionate about Education and joined this project because she has a deep belief that it is possible to develop effective learning, in a context of happiness and love, preparing young people for a changing world, in a sustainable way and in harmony and connection with nature.
In order to grow at a personal and professional level, she carried out various training courses, participated in seminars, workshops, awareness-raising activities, meetings, some of these include: Dançar a Vida na Escola - an intervention project in school context, mindfulness for teachers, Develop entrepreneurship in Adult Education and in Professional education for Social Integration, Ecohabitare - Learning in Community, Authority, Mediation and Conflict Management at School ", Pedagogical Saturdays of the Modern School Movement, course Initial MENTOR- Specific Tutorial Support, Sexuality / hygiene, Prevention and dissuade in the consumption of psychoactive substances, Children and Youth in a Changing Society and Schools in transition, volunteered in Cape Verde at the institution, Delta Cultura, helping children with school tasks.
With a taste for sport and the desire to not let the rhythmic Gymnastics modality die in the city of Portimão she created a club of this modality, and is part of the Board. In this same vein, she complemented her training by taking a course in Judge of Rhythmic Gymnastics and Coach of grade 1.
Her main motivation for being part of Nautiluz is to be part of the change in the Education paradigm.
Wendy Coleman
Wendy has over 20 years of experience in education and schools, in an oversight and leadership capacity, as a mentor and supervising practitioner, and as a certified math teacher (5-8, 9-12) (MEd, Harvard).
After many years in business, Wendy’s priorities began to shift with the birth of her daughter, and she was gradually drawn into the education field; when Ayanna reached kindergarten, Wendy found herself captivated by the independent, progressive school that they had chosen: children were excited to be there, learning was authentic. Plans for a child’s education were drawn up with the strengths and interests of the child in mind. It was hard to get the kids to leave, and in the process, the parent community joined as one large family. Parents participated in school governance, and Wendy was drawn in.
With two degrees in Economics (B.A. Harvard, and MSc from London School of Economics) and a Masters in Business Administration (Harvard), experience with the investment bank Morgan Stanley, and with the international strategy consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, Wendy was asked to join multiple school committees and served on the personnel policy committee, the finance committee, and eventually served as Treasurer of the school and then Head of the Board. In her last years with the school (she left when her daughter did!), she served as one of the advisors to the Head of School.
Separately, Wendy worked as a certified teacher of math (5-8, and 9-12) in a public school outside of Cambridge, MA,, where she focused on building student connections: to each other and to the content. She collaborated with colleagues to shape curriculum, served on curriculum steering committees and as a mentor and supervising practitioner for colleagues seeking licensure. But after 17 years spent teaching in a top-ranked traditional public school, she found herself railing against outdated standards that left students ill-prepared to take on the work that’s needed in the world, and she was increasingly determined to return to the progressive roots that drew her into education in the first place.
Wendy believes that school should be a place where students are valued and heard; where students can explore individual identities within the context of community, through the arts and the physical world; where students have autonomy, making meaning individually and together, through connections to each other and their teacher guides, where learning is driven by student interests and needs determined by the world around us, socially, economically, and ecologically.
Mirka Hlaváčová
Mirka has a BA in Biology and Pedagogy from Bates College (Maine, USA). Her passion for education that is transformative, based on ethics and on engagement with the real world and especially nature, led her to study nature-based mentoring, indigenenous tools for building a learning culture, and rites of passage at the Wilderness Awareness School (Seattle, WA), as well as inspiring her on a 9 year journey learning and teaching Permaculture. Since 2012, Mirka has collaborated with Quinta Vale da Lama & Projecto Novas Descobertas as one of the coordinators of pedagogy, deepening her experience with participatory non-formal education design. She facilitates learning experiences in environmental education for children from Barlavento's schools, as well as teaching adults in permaculture courses about applied ecology and social design. Mirka is excited to join the Nautiluz team and support all age groups with project-based learning. She hopes to deepen students' understanding and appreciation of the natural and cultural heritage of the Algarve and explore all the ways we can regenerate it through observation & informed action.
Ana Martins
Ana has a degree in Psychomotor Rehabilitation and 9 years of experience as an educator. Ana’s skill to observe and connect deeply supports her strong focus on the individual learner profile, which is crucial to adapt their learning experiences in ways which support them in developing their fullest potential. She brings her education and passion for the arts, music, & dance into her work with the learners. Every act that supports a child’s creative development for her is a little act of transforming the status quo in education.
Carolita Lamas
Carolita was born in the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil, she grew up all over Brazil until she moved to Oxford in England as a teenager where she finished her studies and graduated from University in Communication, Media and Culture Studies. She worked in the film industry for many years as well as a language teacher and translator. A passion for education has always been part of her life, so the opportunity to fully immerse in the Nautiluz project with such passionate and knowledgeable partners was a dream come true.
Angela Mesquita
With a degree in Childhood Education and over 23 years of experience in working in pre-school learning environments, teaching is Ângela’s mission in life. She has adopted many changes in pedagogical approaches over time, as she sees that in order to remain relevant, education requires constant updating. Ângela feels strongly about our responsibility towards today's learners to enable them as conscious & creative earth citizens of the future.
Paula Oliveira
Célia Paula Oliveira is a qualified hotel receptionist (front-office) and has a BSc degree in Administrative Management.
In the many years she worked in hotel reception she acquired skills in welcoming guests,, communication and tourist information, and she developed intensely her passion for foreign languages.
She has 18 years of experience as administrative and academic manager in a higher education institution, directly linked to receiving, welcoming and following-up the academic process of international students, this gave her a wide and deep knowledge of academic structure and organization, from both the student’s and professor’s perspective. Additionally, it has deeply nurtured her passion for interpersonal and intercultural relations.
The path she has been following, in administrative assistance, gave her the strong conviction of the relevance of administrative structuring, management and teamwork, working towards organizational success, as a facilitator.
She has a great passion for cultural diversity: languages, habits, customs and religions. Having students from all over the world at the desk every day and being able to support their integration is a privilege!
She is dedicated to studying holistic therapies, Macrobiotics, Ayurveda, and practices Transcendental Meditation. Her deep love for dance and music led her to Biodanza SRT, since she believes in a system that stimulates the joy of being alive, enhances the integration between mind and body and reinforces the connection between human beings.
She trusts in community life and cooperation as a mean for identity development in an integrated way, stimulating the genetic potential that each being is born with and allowing all dimensions of the human being to merge.
She enjoys humour and laughter; she is curious by nature, and driven by the desire for sustainable evolution and progress.
Stefanie Payr
Stefanie holds a master’s degree in Psychology. From exploring deeper human needs and constructive eco factors on the social dimension, the wish emerged to create these conditions. The aim to build regenerative, ecologic environments brought her to the Algarve in 2016, where she engaged in permaculture projects and social change initiatives. She found that especially the social soil and diverse human interdependencies need to be cultivated in order for a resilient ecosystem to grow. Her vision is to find a new balance and a salutogenetic life model based on the tribal human nature by building community and linking what got disconnected. She’s passionate to help people to unfold their potentials, and even more fascinated by the collective creative potential of a group. Especially since becoming a mother in 2019, she began to focus more on education and to help new paradigms to emerge through the next generation of our children, supporting them to develop all their unspoiled capacities, which have the power to go beyond what has settled as current reality and create the new.
Encouraged by a natural learning environment and pedagogy she herself had experienced as a child, Stefanie has practiced informal and autonomous learning driven by natural curiosity throughout her life. This offered an embodied understanding about the capacity anybody can acquire an endless range of new skills, and how it affects our personality development and resilience in a positive way. Creative expression through the body and arts is a main pillar in her work, and extends to the existential dimension: becoming the creator of one’s life. She is a Biodanza trainer, a designer & artisan, and loves to work with textile, natural materials or visual digital content.