Secretariat
OBESSU has a European secretariat located in the European District in Brussels, Belgium. We share a building called Mundo J, with several other organisations active in the youth sector. Examples of other organisations are the European Youth Forum (YFJ) and the Lifelong Learning Platform (LLLP).
The Secretariat is the co-ordination and information centre of the organisation. From the OBESSU Secretariat a big part of the preparatory work of the different projects is done as well as OBESSUs continuous lobbying work towards the European institutions. The work of the Secretariat is lead by the Secretary General.
To know more about the roles and the languages spoken by Secretariat members, please click on their pictures below.
For projects and partnerships please write to Dragana Jovanovska at dragana@obessu.org.
For communications and press enquiries please write to Samira Boumakdi Isabel at samira@obessu.org.
As a Secretary General she is the link between the Board and the Secretariat. She coordinates the work of the Secretariat and supports the Board, as well as the Working Groups and other OBESSU structures. Her tasks also include strategic and financial management of the organisation and overall coordination of daily OBESSU functioning. Giuseppina speaks English, Italian, French and German.
Dragana is working as programme manager in OBESSU, and her role is the overall project coordination and management in the Secretariat. She is responsible for funding and partnership coordination, donor relationships and the overall coordination of the project team.
She speaks English, Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian.
As a Policy and Communications Manager, Samira monitors policy processes relevant for OBESSU, identifies opportunities of influence and shapes the advocacy work of the organisation together with the Policy Officer and the Board. She also oversees and coordinates the communication activities of the organisation. Samira speaks English, French and Spanish.
As a coordinator of the Stronger School Student Unions, she oversees all activities of the project. Her role is to plan and implement activities such as peer learning activities, webinars or field visits. Moreover, Daša is also a membership officer: she is responsible for working with OBESSU’s existing membership, which is also the target group of SSSU, and she is in charge of developing the platform. Daša speaks English and Slovak.
deals with membership development.
María works on the implementation of several projects, such as the KA3 Erasmus+ project CITIZED - Policy implementation support and teacher empowerment for CITIZenship EDucation and the European Parliament DG COMM project Generation D-Liberation in relation with the Conference on the Future of Europe. As Capacity Building Officer, she supports the OBESSU Pool of Trainers and the Membership Officer in the organisation of capacity building and different learning opportunities for Members.
María speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian.
Juanma works on the implementation of the KA3 Erasmus+ project "European Changemakers Academy" (ECMA). His tasks combine the coordination of a complete training for local activists with a set of policy outcomes that will serve the empowerment of youth in the local and European level. He speaks Spanish and English.
As an Finance and Project Officer, Rute provides administrative, logistic and financial support related to the daily activities at OBESSU.
Rute also provides financial coordination and administrative support of the ECMA project and she is in charge of a collaboration in the Europe@home project for the development of an intellectual output related to digital education.
Rute speaks Portuguese, English, French and Spanish.
With his long experience in the sector, he is in charge of managing OBESSU's financial accounting, producing accurate financial reports and keeping abreast of changes in financial regulations and legislation. He also advises the Board and the Secretary General on OBESSU's events from a financial point of view.
As Communication and Advocacy Assistant, Eleonora assists in Internal and External Communication of OBESSU and in Policy and Advocacy related-work of the Organisation. She speaks Italian and English and she is learning French and Arabic.
As Research and Policy assistant, Gilda coordinates the work of OBESSU’s research Task Force on Covid-19, as part of the SSSU project. Her tasks include research design, methodology and implementation, policy monitoring and more broadly, support in other activities of the Secretariat.
Gilda speaks Italian, English, French and Swahili.