Current participants

YIP welcomes 20-40 young people from around the world to join the program and supports them in their efforts to become the change they wish to see in the world, and to find their service and engagement in their own future and the future of our society and world.

These are the current participants:

The Organising team

Contributors

The contributors are the change makers that bring the teachings and content to the program. They are the 'bricks and mortar‘ for the intellectual, socio-emotional and spiritual content of the program. In many cases they are social and societal entrepreneurs themselves and take a week out of their busy lives to come and share their knowledge and insights with the participants of YIP. Typically they join the program for a week and teach during the mornings. During this time they also participate in the community life of YIP. It is a wonderful chance for the participants to connect, build and deepen personal and informal relationships to these contributors who are often leading figures in various professions and leaders in their community.

This years contributors include:

Featured image for “Allan Kaplan”

Allan Kaplan

Allan Kaplan is a development practitioner, teacher and writer.  He is the author of The Development Practitioner’s Handbook, Artists of the Invisible, and, most…
Featured image for “Annie Meijer”

Annie Meijer

Annie Meijer (BA, MSc, BACPaccred) is a Biographical Counsellor and Biography work facilitator and trainer. She has run accredited trainings…
Featured image for “Barbara Philomena Schnetzler”

Barbara Philomena Schnetzler

Barbara Philomena Schnetzler is a freelance sculptor living in Basel and Mulhouse. Born and raised in Basel. She is trained as a…
Featured image for “Brenno Kaschner Russo”

Brenno Kaschner Russo

Brenno works with the technology of connection for unleashing collective potential. From Belgium to India, Russia to China, he has…
Featured image for “Christianne Aikins”

Christianne Aikins

Christianne is an educator, facilitator, and ‘development practitioner’ based in Beirut, leveraging participatory approaches to support security sector reform with…
Featured image for “Dr. Gopi Krishna Vijaya”

Dr. Gopi Krishna Vijaya

Dr. Gopi Krishna Vijaya is a Physicist from Bangalore, India. He has a particular interest in Solar Energy, Goethean Phenomenology,…
Featured image for “Dr. Vandana Shiva”

Dr. Vandana Shiva

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker, activist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocat. She is…
Featured image for “Elias Romualdez”

Elias Romualdez

Elias Romualdez, born in the Philippines and based in Metro-Manila, is a facilitator of workshops that focus on processes of…
Featured image for “Gerald Häfner”

Gerald Häfner

Gerald Häfner is a German politician who served as an Member of the European Parliament for Alliance ’90/The Greens between…
Featured image for “Isabel Chender”

Isabel Chender

An avid listener and learner, Isabel believes that by creating conditions and practices for genuine collaboration we can begin to…
Featured image for “Justas Kučinskas”

Justas Kučinskas

Movement fundamentals teacher with extensive experience in performing arts. Justas is a dancer, choreographer, yoga teacher. Besides his movement practice…
Featured image for “Luc Vandecasteele”

Luc Vandecasteele

Luc Vandecasteele is a medical doctor since 1978. His wife and he received 6 children. After a formation in The…
Featured image for “Marcel de Leuw”

Marcel de Leuw

Biography Marcel de Leuw, was born in 1948 in Someren, the Netherlands. He worked for many years as a teacher…
Featured image for “Nikolas Bieleit-Medicus”

Nikolas Bieleit-Medicus

Nikolas is a psychologist, philosopher, and dedicated Zen practitioner. After working in a change consultancy he became a freelancer and…
Featured image for “Patricia McCabe”

Patricia McCabe

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader with…
Featured image for “Rachel Ingvad”

Rachel Ingvad

Rachel J. Ingvad was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. As a child she also lived in England, Germany and Massachusetts USA.…
Featured image for “Randolph Carter”

Randolph Carter

As both the founder of East Ed and a member of the Black Panther Party, Randolph has devoted his career…
Featured image for “Reinoud R. Meijer”

Reinoud R. Meijer

Reinoud organised, facilitated, initiated and founded a number of youth conferences, projects, and initiatives before co-founding the YIP program.…
Featured image for “Roi Gal-Or”

Roi Gal-Or

Roi Gal-Or is a Director of the International School of Storytelling based at Emerson College, as well as teaching storytelling…
Featured image for “Theo Fischer”

Theo Fischer

“What would our world look like if we allowed complexity to fully run its course? If each and everyone of…
Featured image for “Thomas Lüthi”

Thomas Lüthi

Thomas Lüthi was born in 1947 in Zürich, Switzerland. He studied biodynamic farming and gardening at Warmonderhof in the Netherlands…

View all contributors

Please note: YIP is a 'permanent improvisation‘, seeking to adapt to what participants are searching for and the current trends in our society. Due to this some information you find here is subject to change.

YIP Alumni

Each year the YIP program adds another group of alumni to the growing network. 

The program has many experiences, learnings, insights and developments as a result, but one of the biggest and most lasting results are the human relations that build over the 10 months of living and learning together. Alumni often refer to their year group as 'their family' in the positive sense of what that might mean. Now that YIP has been operational for many years, that network is stretching itself across all continents and is starting to become a powerful community of change makers around the world. 

These are the Alumni of the YIP years so far.