The Team

Raymond De Feyter – Belgium – Communication Designer and Board Member 

Raymond is a cartoonist. He is interested in contemporary art, theatre, Belgian and international politics. He is involved in local 'green' politics. He looks after the lay-out of December 18’s material: posters, annual reports, flyers etc. Raymond has coordinated the upgrades to the 2007 and 2008 Radio 1812 sites.

René Plaetevoet - Brussels - Director

René is the co-founder and current director of December 18. He worked for many years in the international human rights as well as communication fields. He conceptualised the Radio 1812 project with the aim to provide an extra stimulus to the worldwide celebration of International Migrants Day.

Najatte Kaaoiss - Brussels - Coordinator

Najatte Kaaoiss started as coordinator since March 2009. She holds a master and is graduated in social work. Prior to joining December 18, she worked during 3 years as general secretary at the FEMYSO. Since 1996, she is involved as volunteer in Muslim community work and also in Trade union. She is one of the key persons building up the "Jeunes CSC Bruxelles" since 2003. She is still involved in training for youth.

Ruth Reichstein – Brussels – Journalist

Ruth is a German freelance radio journalist who joined the Radio 1812 team in 2008. She produces original audio content that will be shared through the Radio 1812 website.

Pilar Villarroel – Brussels

Pilar is 27 and comes from Argentina. She graduated from the National University of Cordoba with a degree in social communications. Pilar has a background in radio and worked as a presentator for a number of radio programmes  in Cordoba. She is very interested in human rights and social movements. Her thesis was based on extensive fieldwork on new social movements, popular communication and the human rights struggle.She is the Spanish-language region coordinator for Radio 1812.

Pablo Sánchez - Brussels

Pablo is from Barcelona where he studied International Relations. He now lives in Brussels and joined the December 18 team in March 2007. Previously he did internships with Social Alert International and PICUM. For the Radio 1812 project Pablo helps with the (media) outreach to the hispanophone world and does translation work.

Marika Sidoti - Brussels

Marika is from Italy, where she studied political science and international relations and graduated with a thesis on refugee rights and migrants' rights in international law. She is particularly interested in human rights protection and promotion and in development cooperation. She volunteered for a relief project in Eritrea and was a cultural mediator at the Lampedusa Reception Centre for immigrants. She started an internship with December 18 in September 2009, where her work includes updating the website with the latest developments related to the UN system. For Radio 1812, Marika coordinates the collaboration with the Italian radio stations and organizations.

Alex Cullen - Brussels

Alex, our Irish colleague, graduated from Cardiff University (UK) with a BA degree in Politics and French in 2008. He took an internship position as a radio journalist at Euradio Nantes in France where he spent six months. He joined us in September 2009 as the English language coordinator for the Radio 1812 event.

Youssef Touzani - Brussels

Youssef volunteers for Radio 1812. He recently graduated  from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and is now a teacher. Over the past years he  was heavily involved with the work of E.A.T.A. an association which helps young migrants with their integration in the host society through education. He is also an activist with the CSC union.

Cheffou Fayçal - Brussels

Journalist and radio technician who works  for the Radio Contact group. He is programme producer with Radio Almanar and founder of Diwan FM.

Karim Saafi

Volunteer for Radio 1812, Karim saafi is currently studying at the Solvay Business School and participated in an exchange program at the Recanati Business School in Tel-Aviv. He is interested and actively participated in debates and forum about intercultural and interreligious dialogue through FEMYSO, Bureau International de la Jeunesse, League of Arab states, the Council of Europe, Jeunes CSC, Stop the killings campaign, ...