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.
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.
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.
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.