Promoting international understanding and cooperation, by contributing to the rule of law and the international legal order, are central in my career. I worked for inter alia Amnesty International (team manager, 1986-1990), Oxfam Novib (team and project manager, 1990-1996), the Netherlands Helsinki Committee (director, 1996-2009) and the Clingendael Institute (director of corporate staff, 2009-2019). At the Clingendael Institute, I was also temporarily seconded to the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (operations manager, 2017-2019). After being management partner of Human European Consultancy in 2020, I succeeded Marcel Zwamborn as its director as of 1 January 2021.
I successfully developed, implemented and managed tailor-made projects and programmes in various Central and East European countries (such as Romania, Bulgaria and Czech Republic) and also in the Netherlands and Turkey. The topics of these projects included: professional training on international human rights law and the rule of law for magistrates, lawyers, police, prison staff and probation staff; and capacity building for professional organisations of judges and prosecutors, human rights organisations, a national probation service and training institutes for magistrates. For ICCT, I provided a training on fund-raising (civil society organisation, Indonesia) and did a project evaluation on the implementation of the ‘Rome Memorandum’ of the GCTF (prison service, The Philippines).
In addition, I succeeded in raising funds for them. My counterparts included international organisations, governments, non-governmental organisations and professionals.
A broad knowledge and professional experience in finance, human resources management, institutional reorganisation, institutional capacity building and governance are part of my toolkit.
Ivette Groenendijk
Project manager
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Ivette in a nutshell - Born in Indonesia (1974) and raised in The Netherlands. After graduation I managed projects in various companies/organisations with a national and international orientation since 1998.
In my daily life as well as in my job, I am interested in issues related to Corporate Social Responsibility. Human European Consultancy works on human rights and non-discrimination projects and I hope I can contribute with my work to a better world for everyone.
I joined in July 2011 as project manage associate/project coordinator, and am currently working as project manager. I am responsible for managing the project(s) from the development of the work programme to the planning and monitoring of the work of the core team and national experts, and from coordinating an annual conference to the development of a project website.
When I am not at the office I work as a volunteer for the NGO Right to Play. I enjoy playing (beach) volleyball with my team mates, exercise my practice in Pilates and Yin yoga and above all travelling around the world with my backpack and camera meeting new people and familiarising myself with their culture, history and interests.
Yvonne van Leeuwen-Lohde
Office manager/project management associate
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I was born in Germany (1982) and since 2000 I live in the Netherlands. After working for several international organisations, I am proud to work for an organisation which focuses on the real important aspects in life such as people-orientation, honesty, sincerity and freedom! It is absolutely great to be able to contribute to this!
I joined the team of Human European Consultancy in July 2018 and with all the organisation stands for I feel that I can completely be myself. In my role as office manager & project support I am co-responsible for the maintenance of our expert network, the layout of publications, general administration, organising international seminars and meetings, as well as daily general office challenges. With my people skills and extensive experience in building expert networks, project- and resource planning I get the work done in the most efficient way and with a human touch.
If I am not at the office, you can either find me outside jogging or having fun with my kids. Beside this I love making cakes and pies. I am always looking for new and delicious recipes; no challenge is too high.
Rebecca van Midden
Office & administration manager/project support
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After years of working as an office manager, mostly for small commercial companies, working for Human European Consultancy feels like I am finally in the right spot. I feel privileged that I now work for a company which is specialized in projects in the fields of human rights, equality and non-discrimination.
I started working at Human European Consultancy in 2015 as an administrative assistant and in 2016 as an office manager. Next to all administrative-and office manager related tasks, I am responsible for the layout of publications and for the organisation of all the logistics related to the annually seminars/meetings. Besides all this, I am also responsible for the maintenance of all websites and I monitor the corporate identity of the company as well as the multiple networks.
When I am not at the office, I am active for the Party for the Animals in the city where I live. My future aim is to change peoples’ perspective when it comes to animal rights. And my dream is that I am able to witness the inclusion of animal welfare in our Constitution.
In my spare time I love to go scuba diving, skiing, watching series and do Vinyasa yoga.
Marcel Zwamborn
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The running thread in my work is the promotion and protection of international human rights, equal treatment and non-discrimination, either as (project) manager or as an individual expert. I have been a lobbyist for Amnesty International in The Hague and Brussels ('81 - '87), deputy director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights of the University of Utrecht ('87 - '92) and director of the National Bureau against Racial Discrimination (LBR) in the Netherlands from '92 until mid-1998. From then on I have worked as a freelance consultant in the field of human rights until I joined Human European Consultancy in 2007 as partner.
At Human European Consultancy, I managed a series of projects relating to fundamental rights in the EU, Equality Bodies and access to justice in non-discrimination, violence against women, children and sexual orientation violence and evaluation of human rights projects funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I have also served as alternate member of the Equal Treatment Commission (Commissie Gelijke Behandeling) from 2001 until 2013.
Jos Kösters
