The OII Europe Board
The Executive Board & Steering Board
Magda Rakita
Co-Chair (Executive Board)Magda is an intersex woman, coach, crisis consultant and activist.
Her education background is in economics, however after successful career in finance she now focuses on building support networks for intersex people as well as advocacy for intersex human rights.
She took part, presented and co-organised several events, gathering and conferences on subject of intersex. She co-founded Fundacja Interakcja – first intersex organisation in Poland and Interconnected UK. Previously she co-organised first ever intersex groups taking part in London pride and collaborated with Intersex UK.
Kristian Ranđelović
Co-Chair (Executive Board)Kristian is an expert for the Balkan Region, has expertise as a professional counselor, and has an intersex leadership role in Serbia and the Balkan region. Kristian has served as OII Europe’s Secretary 2020-2022.
Kaisli Syrjänen
Treasurer (Executive Board)Kaisli is an expert on advocacy for intersex human rights and children’s rights. Kaisli is co-founder of ISIO – Intersex Human Rights, Finland.
Tobias Humer
Secretary (Executive Board)Tobias is involved in the intersex community and activism since 2011. He co-founded VIMÖ (OII Austria) and Plattform Intersex Austria and has been working e.g. in advocacy, community work, peer counselling and trainings / consulting.
Belgin Günay
Steering BoardBelgin has been involved in the intersex community and activism since 2009. They co-founded Inter Solidarity, produced the first non-medical online content about intersex in Turkish, and brought Turkish intersex activists together. Belgin still works relentlessly organizing workshops, giving trainings, peer counseling, consulting, and advocating. Their background come from local journalism and they often use the skills they earned in this profession in activism too.
Previous steering board members
- Audrey Aegerter
- Daria Aleksandrova
- Kitty Anderson
- Mael LeBraz
- Alessandro Comeni
- Dan Christian Ghattas
- Kris Günther
- Miriam van der Have
- Ins A Kromminga
- Irene Kuzemko
- Ev Blaine Matthigack
- Pol Naidenov
- Luan Pertl
- Loé Petit
The OII Europe Staff
Dan Christian Ghattas
Executive DirectorDan is responsible for providing overall leadership and management, working towards increasing the organisations funds and, together with the team, establish a working environment that allows the team to thrive and OII Europe’s strategic goals to be pursued effectfully. Dan is also acting as OII Europe’s advocacy director and coordinates and leads OII Europe’s policy work towards EU, CoE and UN bodies. Dan has been an international intersex activist since 2009. He holds a PhD, has a mixed ethnic background, collects nationalities (Tunesian, German, French) and likes to read and paint miniatures.
Luan Pertl
Interim Finance and Administration OfficerLuan is currently working as our Interim Finance and Administration Officer and also supports OII Europe as a consultant for our program for intersex refugees and asylum seekers. Luan is an intersex person and activist from Austria.
Sandra Esi Aninkora
Finance TraineeSandra Esi Aninkora (she/her) is a young queer feminist professional with experience working on issues affecting women, children and gender expansive people. she is working as a finance trainee, primarily involved in finance and administration of OII Europe. Esi is from Ghana and has a Bachelors’ degree in Accounting and Finance. In her spare time, Esi enjoys building her knowledge on progressive feminist movement-building strategies.
Jana Hugo
Policy OfficerJana is one of our Policy Officers. Her work focuses on policy monitoring, reporting and advocacy in relation to intersex people’s human rights. Originally from South Africa, Jana has a background in Gender studies and is particularly passionate about intersectionality and celebrating diversity.
Maddalena Bianchi
Policy OfficerMaddalena is one of our Policy Officers. Her work focuses on policy monitoring, reporting and advocacy in relation to intersex people’s human rights. Maddalena comes from France and has a background in international relations. She has experience working on LGBTIQ equality as an activist and in EU institutions.
Irene Kuzemko
Capacity & Community Building OfficerIrene is the Capacity & Community Building Officer of OII Europe. Her work focuses on community building and organizing, on creating training and educational measures for the intersex movement and on supporting OII Europe’s member organisations. She’s an intersex person and activist from Russia and Ukraine, active in the intersex movement since 2015.
Ins A Kromminga
Senior Awareness Raising & Campaigns OfficerIns field of work include tasks related to develop and create awareness raising materials and media (print, web, social), campaigns, visualization and design of OII Europe awareness materials. Ins has a background in fine arts (MFA) and has been an international intersex activist since 2000.
Consultants
Luan Pertl
Consultant,Intersex Refugee & Asylum Program
Luan supports OII Europe as a consultant for our program for intersex refugees and asylum seekers. Until August 2022 Luan was OII Europe’s Training & Education Officer after having been OII Europe’s first Finance & Administration Officer. Luan is an intersex person and activist from Austria.
Urs Vanessa Sager
Consultant,Intersex & Sports
Having personally experienced years ago what it means having to stop competitive sports because of their intersex variation from one day to another, Urs Vanessa has dedicated their activism in the past years mainly to the fight against discrimination and human rights violations in sports.
Living in the country where most of the big sports bodies have their seats Urs Vanessa has started to build an important network of useful contacts, which one of these days will hopefully lead to an end of the discrimination of intersex athletes in every sport.
Urs Vanessa is an intersex activist from Switzerland and co-chair of InterAction Switzerland.
Arpi Avetisyan
Consultant,Strategic Litigation
Arpi supports OII Europe’s strategic litigation work. She advises on development and implementation of strategies for using litigation to protect human rights of intersex people across Europe.
Arpi is an international human rights lawyer with over 20 years of experience in research, advocacy, capacity development and strategic litigation before the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice and UN human rights treaty bodies. Previously she lead strategic litigation work at ILGA-Europe and provided litigation advice to NGOs in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe in her role as the Litigation Adviser at INTERIGHTS.
