Speaker bio.

Helena Roza Brus, Secretary- General of KLHA & SHMA was born in Warsaw in 1947 to Holocaust survivors. She left Poland for the US in 1968 on the wave of antisemitic moves by the Polish government to continue her studies in economics at Harvard University. After graduation in 1971, she obtained an MSc degree in economics at the London School of Economics and held managerial positions in a number of large international companies, traveling extensively. Since 1990 she has represented the US Council for International Business at the OECD on matters of health social policy, education, and labor. After retiring from the industry in 2008, she has worked as a consultant in Sweden for an organization dealing with privacy on the internet. For a quarter of a century, she has been active in Holocaust organizations and conducting research on the Holocaust in Poland. She was instrumental in establishing a Holocaust Memorial in the village of Kroscienko near Ustrzyki Dolne in Poland where the Jewish population was killed in 1942. Helena serves as Secretary-General of SHMA and shares her time between Israel, Sweden, and Poland. She has been working on a number of projects in SHMA.

Chemistry teacher, participating in iEARN projects since 2018.

Basia Vucic brings an expert perspective on human rights, education and political action in the times of crisis. Invited as a 2019 visiting fellow to the UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw. The scope of her research at the Institute of Education (UCL, London) includes the hidden history of the child rights movement, political theory and democratic education. Prior to academia, Basia had many years of leadership experience in Australia, having established integrated education, health and care services for government, NGO and private sectors. She holds degrees in Health Science, Education and International Co-operation. Basia is on the board of the International Korczak Association and a co-teacher of courses such as ‘The Global Teacher’ and UNESCO Korczak Summer School. She is an experienced speaker having presented on research methodology, philosophy and ‘hidden’ history including a TEDx talk on children’s use of technology. She has a problematic relationship with coffee and a very cheeky beagle.

Emmy Award-winner Brian Hull has been the head of Wishing Chair Productions Puppet Theater at the Nashville Public Library for 23 years where he is also the Artistic Director of their International Puppet Festivals – and was a former board member and President of Puppeteers of America.

Madene Shachar is a veteran educator and has been a museum guide at the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum and Yad Layeled Children’s Memorial Museum in Israel since 2000. She holds a Master’s Degree in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa. Her work includes guiding and curriculum development in the children’s memorial museum, Yad Layeled, as well as the history museum. Shachar has experience in social media, and in the past was the director of the Ghetto Fighters’ House website, electronic newsletter and Facebook page. Presently, she is the director of the Ghetto Fighters’ House international online lecture series “Talking Memory.” Her research interests include Holocaust education, Holocaust memorials and the representation of the Holocaust in the museum space. She has participated in conferences and workshops both in Israel and abroad and has written numerous articles and chapters on various subjects in the field of Holocaust education and Holocaust representation.

Arie de Bruin (1947) is a pedagogue and chairman of the Janusz Korczak Foundation in the Netherlands. He is also chairman of the educational working group of the Loods24/Joods Kindermonument Rotterdam foundation. He developed a special project for primary schools in Rotterdam about the persecution of the Jews in this city.

Karin is a Children’s Rights advocate, an educator experienced with students from Preschool to Postgraduate levels and projects with school leaders also. She has established and leads the Janusz Korczak Association Australia.

Jaśmina Wójcik – a visual artist, director, author of listening-focused, participatory socio-artistic actions. She deals with including and giving subjectivity to communities that lack visibility and expression. A co-editor of the book Art with the Community (2018) centered around her best known undertaking – a long-term activity with the community of former workers of the factory in Ursus crowned with the award-winning creative documentary film directed by her entitled Symphony of the Ursus Factory (2018). For several years, she has been involved in alternative education through the development of proprietary practices in the creation of children’s artistic expression. She gives agency and subjectivity to children, treating them as co-creators and inviting them to a dialogue. Currently, Wójcik focuses mainly on grassroots education practices, which will result in her new film based on the novel by Janusz Korczak, King Maciuś the First.

Agnieszka Naumiuk, PhD, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Warsaw, Poland since 2002. My areas of interest are, among other: adult education through participation (including non-formal and informal education); educational roles of non-profit organizations; preventing from exclusion through creating social support networks and building direct democracy; social education and community organizing models directed towards education.

Prof. Mag. Dr. Dr. hc. Daniela G. Camhy

at the Philosophy Department University of Graz AUSTRIA – main fields: Language Philosophy, Ethics, Intercultural Philosophy, Didactics of Philosophy, Human Rights Education, Philosophy for/with Children and Youth. PHD in Philosophy at University of Graz/Austria. Honorary Doctorate of Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, USA (Doctor of Letters).

Lecturing as invited and visiting professor at Universities in Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Island, Japan, Liechtenstein, Malta, Netherland, , Serbia, Slovenia, South-Korea, Spain, UK, USA.

Director and founder of the Austrian Centre of Philosophy with Children (ACPC), Graz, the first Centre of Philosophy for/with Children in Europe. She is ounding member of ICPIC (International Council for Philosophical Inquiry with Children) and founding member of SOPHIA (the European Foundation for the Advancement of Doing Philosophy with Children), Society, member of Austrian League of Human Rights and Austrian Coordinator of the CEEPUS (Central European Exchange Program for University Studies) Network “Philosophy and Interdisciplinary” of 18 universities and she was elected president of the Austrian Society of Philosophy in 2021.

Organized and realized more than 40 research- and EU-projects with partners from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Island, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Rumania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Portugal, Poland, UK.

Awards

– 2012 Henri La Fontaine International Prize of Humanism : awarded at the Belgium parliament in Brussels by the prime minister Elio Di Rupo, the president of the Henri La Fontaine Foundation Jean- Pol Baras and Stéphane Hessel, French Resistance member, writer of Time of Outrage!, diplomat, ambassador, concentration camp survivor, co-author of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

– 012 Children Rights Award: awarded by the Children´s Bureau and by the Obligate Attorneys for Children and Youth of Styria

She has published in German, English, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. She is author of more than 80 publications.

Sarah Silins is a graduate of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and led the Reimagining Youth Justice Project at Northwestern’s Children and Family Justice Center. Before law school, Sarah coordinated outreach and community organizing efforts for the Life Without Parole Project also at the Children and Family Justice Center. Her work focused on gaining support and cultivating the voices of the families of Illinois’ life without parole inmates and working to organize against the extreme sentencing of youth. Sarah has a background in community organizing and ethnographic research, and a B.A in Sociology and Human Services.

Jonathan Levy is educated in Pedagogy and the philosophy of education, and lives and works in France. He provides training in the education, social, Intergovernmental and NGO sectors. He is is the initiator and Director of pedagogy & Advocacy the CRIA (Child rights in Action). He is a consultant for both UNESCO & UNICEF in pedagogy and children’s rights. He is member of the French Janusz Korczak Association. He is member of the high commission on children’s issues created by the French government: HCFEA.

Chairman of the Korczak Foundation, currently a PhD candidate in the Doctoral School of Social Sciences (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Education) and the teacher of history of art in the high school. He ran Korczak-themed lectures and workshops in numerous places: in Poland, Germany, UK, USA, France and Canada. He is a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology (University of Warsaw) where he conduct the lecture “Janusz Korczak: an inspiration for psychologists.”

Agata Skalska studied early childhood education (BA) and empowerment studies (MA). Since 2017 she has been working at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf as a research assistant and lecturer. Her research is concerned with the perspectives of children in kindergarden, her doctoral dissertation deals with Janusz Korczak and his image of the child and the generational order between children and adults. Agata is currently also building the new Janusz Korczak archive at the university, which will support teaching and research at the university.

Tali is a lecturer in Literature and Education in Kibbutzim College. She is currently earning her Ph.D. from the School of Culture studies in Tel Aviv University and a research fellow in Shalom Hartman Institute.
Her book Grandmother Required was published in Zeltner Publishing House (2018).
Tali is a board member in the Agnon’s House Association (Shai Agnon’s heritage) and in the Ruah Tseira Association (Humanities for youth).

Assistant professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). His research focus on gifted and talented children and youth, methodological solutions for diagnosing and optimizing the well-being of children and adolescents, and gender issues in various social and educational contexts. He has published articles related to G&T Education, research methodology, gender politics and societal issues; these articles often have a comparative nature. He gained valuable academic knowledge during his time at the University of Birmingham (England), University of Oxford (England), University of Oslo (Norway) and Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). From 2017 he is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham (England).

Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. A researcher and academic teacher in the Institute of Pedagogy at the University of Silesia. A Vice-Rector for the Staff Development at the University of Silesia.

Her research is located in children’s rights area and strongly connected with such topics as children’s participation and childhood studies, Korczak influence on developing modern educational concepts and violence against children. She is an author of many scientific publications – papers and books (over 170). Some of her books were awarded by scientific societies and the Ministry of High Education in Poland. As an expert in her fields of scientific interests, she is a popular reviewer of scientific works but also she is a consultant for ngo-s dealing with children’s affairs. She is a member of the Committee of Pedagogical Sciences of the Polish Academy of Science. She is a vice-president of the Association “The Movement of Socially Engaged Pedagogues”. In years 2011-2018 she was a social advisor for the Polish Ombudsman for Children. On this position she used to prepare annual reports research on social attitudes on violence in upbringing – eight years lasting monitoring of the Ombudsman. On behalf of the Ombudsman she was also a country coordinator in the international project “Non-violent childhoods – moving on from corporal punishment in the Baltic Sea Region” in years 2017-2018. She was also a member of the Honorary Committee of the Janusz Korczak 2012 Year. In 2018 she was a candidate for the Ombudsperson on the Rights of the Child in Poland for the cadence 2018-2023, recommended and supported by citizen’s organisations and non-governmental organisation.

Alicja Korzeniecka-Bondar (Ph.D.) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Bialystok, Poland; Editor-in-chief of journal “Parezja. Czasopismo Forum Młodych Pedagogów przy Komitecie Nauk Pedagogicznych PAN” [“Parrhesia. Journal of the Forum of Young Scholars at the Committee of Education Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences”] (GICID: 71.0000.1500.1860); member of The Polish Janusz Korczak Association. She is the author and co-author of 70 scientific articles concerning the problem of teacher`s day to day work and temporal dimension of everyday school practices. The last book: Everyday Time at School. Phenomenographic Study of Teachers’ Experiences (Krakow 2018).

Tomasz Prymak (PhD) Assistant professor at the Department of Social and Educational Studies of the Faculty of Education of the University of Bialystok, Poland. Probation officer from penal department of the District Court in Bialystok. Scientific interests focus on the problem behavior of schoolchildren – pedagogical, legal and criminological aspects; author of several publications related to this subject; author and coordinator of projects devoted to school security, including a project in the field of legal education, implemented under the government program “Safe and Friendly School 2014-2016.”

Former assistant professor of education at Rotterdam University of Applied Science; now an indepedent scholar and author of, a.o., four books and numerous articles, chapters and lectures on Janusz Korczak.