Anouska Plasmeijer
Executive Director and volunteer focal point – anouska@janegoodall.be
Anouska Plasmeijer is a Dutch national and has been living in Belgium for the past 15 years. She is the new Executive Director for JGI Belgium as from 01 January 2020. She holds a degree in tropical forestry and worked for a big nature conservation corporation. She lives in Brussels, is married and the proud mother of three beautiful children and has an adorable rescue dog.
A long-time admirer of founder Jane Goodall she was pleased to learn about the many activities we do in Belgium, specifically on reforestation. Anouska is keen to get more involved in local activities and joining forces with other likeminded people to improve the environment and the lives of people and animals.
Her favourite quote: “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans” from the song Beautiful Boy by John Lennon.
Roots & Shoots coordinator – rootsandshoots@janegoodall.be
Céline completed her master in England, in Developmental psychology, and has worked and lived in Amsterdam. After meeting Jane Goodall in 2020, she realised that her personal values were in alignement with Jane Goodall’s achievements and way of thinking and she therefore aspired to join JGI Belgium. Raising awareness of younger people on climate change and on protecting nature and animals is, according to her, the key to improve tomorrow’s world.
Iro is a Social Anthropology graduate from Greece and an Intern at the Jane Goodall Institute Belgium with support of the ERASMUS+ programme. She loves animals, the sea, and warm weather, and is keen to work on the well-being of animals. Iro admires the holistic approach of the Jane Goodall Institute to promoting animal welfare, which is why she was interested in an internship with JGI before taking up a Master’s either in Anthrozoology or Ethology. In this internship she hopes to get hands-on knowledge of the day-to-day activities of an NGO and to be surrounded by like-minded people who refuse to stop being on the right side of things; or, as Jane herself says, who decide what kind of difference they want to make.”
Advocacy campaigns – advocacy@janegoodall.be
Tessa is a French/British national and grew up in Brussels, Belgium. A school project on Jane Goodall when she was 8 years old, propelled Tessa to learn more about conservation and biodiversity issues, influencing her career choice. She works for the United Nations on strategic communication, project management, resource mobilization, and partnership engagement. Her work focuses on climate change policy, disaster risk reduction, human rights, and food security. Tessa now works as a partnerships engagement specialist at UNICEF’s Brussels Office, finding solutions on how to channel the energy of young generations in guaranteeing a more sustainable future. Tessa joined JGI Belgium in 2022 as advocacy lead volunteer.
Animal Welfare – animalwelfare@janegoodall.be
Romina is from Bulgaria, but lives in Brussels since 2018 where she is a European affairs professional. While international relations, politics, economics and social issues are the topics she is dealing with on a daily basis, she is a passionate admirer of our planet Earth and is fascinated by the amazing wildlife of our world. Dr Jane Goodall is one of the amazing people that inspires her and that is why she joined JGI Belgium in 2020. Romina is an active member of the Communications team, as well as the coordinator of the Animal welfare/fundraising team.
Linde Wolters
Communication – communication@janegoodall.be
Dutch-born, Brussels raised and life-schooled in a few other countries, Linde lives in Brussels with her partner. Linde was happy to discover the field of social innovation, investing & enterprises six years ago and now combines work for an organisation supporting environmental and social enterprises in developing countries with volunteering for local organisations.
Events – events@janegoodall.be
Kathelijne Bonne
Newsletter – newsletter@janegoodall.be
Kathelijne is a science writer and translator from Flanders and lives in Spain. She studied Geology and Soil Science and has been passionate about natural history, the planet and wildlife since her childhood.
Kathelijne did field work in Tanzania and Cameroon and then left Africa, only to realise that Africa had not left her. She remembers the first time she heard of Jane. Sometime in the 90s she saw Jane on tv, sitting in a little boat on Lake Tanganyika on her way to Gombe, looking away from the increasingly deforested hillslopes fringing the lake. Inspired by Jane’s work Kathelijne joined JGI to translate, edit and write. She is also responsible for the newsletters.Her favourite quote is “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known”, by astronomer Carl Sagan.
Webmaster and Translations – ict@janegoodall.be
Ronald is a Flemish chemist and webmaster/webdeveloper. Since 2015 he has been maintaining and developing websites. He also coordinates translations.
Photo credits: some by Ivan Dunsmore/JGIB. Anouska by Nicola Van Achter.